Rudd runs scared from climate debate

6 December, 2009 by

Denying the people a debate

Denying the people a debate

… with some half-baked excuse about the Opposition “not having a policy” – why on earth that would stop him debating the issue? Well, actually, I think we know the real reason, don’t we, readers?

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has dismissed a challenge for a series of public debates over climate change, saying the Federal Opposition needs to have a policy first.

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he wants to have the debates over the proposed emissions trading scheme before the Government reintroduces the legislation in February.

But Mr Rudd says Mr Abbott should instead focus his efforts on developing a Coalition policy.

“Mr Howard had a policy on climate change, Mr Turnbull had a policy on climate change – it was called an emissions trading scheme,” he said.

“Mr Abbott – the current leader of the Liberal Party – does not have any policy on climate change.

“I’d suggest the Leader of the Opposition calms down, puts in the hard yards and actually develops a policy.”

Despite the attempt at matey banter, and patronising put downs of Tony Abbott, it is still transparent as a sheet of Glad Wrap, Kevin!

If you don’t turn up, you lose.

Read it here.

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UK Met Office to re-examine and release 160 years of data

6 December, 2009 by

Releasing data

Releasing data

Will this be the start of a flood of data releases from organisations desperate not to be tarred with the CRU brush, I wonder? How many fudge factors will they find in the Met Office code?

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.

But this paragraph is the most amazing, and, given my previous post, not at all surprising:

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics. (source)

Yep, that’s right. Move along. Nothing to see here. Don’t want the sceptics looking at the data, they might find something wrong with it! Sadly for the oafish Gordon Brown, the Met Office has in fact gone one step further, and will release the data into the public arena:

The Met Office has announced plans to release, early next week, station temperature records for over one thousand of the stations that make up the global land surface temperature record.

…

This subset is not a new global temperature record and it does not replace the HadCRUT, NASA GISS and NCDC global temperature records, all of which have been fully peer reviewed. We are confident this subset will show that global average land temperatures have risen over the last 150 years. [Well of course it will. We all know temperatures have risen in that period. What it doesn’t prove is man-made warming – Ed]

This subset release will continue the policy of putting as much of the station temperature record as possible into the public domain.

We intend that as soon as possible we will also publish the specific computer code that aggregates the individual station temperatures into the global land temperature record.

As soon as we have all permissions in place we will release the remaining station records – around 5000 in total – that make up the full land temperature record. We are dependant on international approvals to enable this final step and cannot guarantee that we will get permission from all data owners. (source)

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UK PM Gordon Brown: "We know the science."

6 December, 2009 by

Dumb and dumber

Dumb and dumber

Gordon Brown isn’t the sharpest tool in the bag, but he’s resorting to ever more desperate hyperbole in the lead up to Copenhagen. And he clearly hasn’t read the CRU exchanges either:

BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown has led a chorus of condemnation against ”flat-earth” climate change sceptics who have tried to derail the Copenhagen summit by casting doubt on the evidence for global warming.

Sceptics in the UK and US have moved to capitalise on a series of hacked emails from climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia, England, claiming they show attempts to hide information that does not support the case for human activity causing rising temperatures.

On the eve of the Copenhagen summit, Saudi Arabia and Republican members of the US Congress have used the emails to claim the need for urgent action to cut carbon emissions has been undermined.

But on Friday Mr Brown, UK Environment Secretary Ed Miliband, and Ed Markey, co-author of the US climate change bill, joined forces to condemn the sceptics.

”With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics,’‘ Mr Brown said. ”We know the science. We know what we must do. We must now act and close the 5 billion-tonne gap. That will seal the deal.”

According to the British Government adviser Sir Nicholas Stern, 10 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions must be taken out of the atmosphere by 2020. So far agreement is in place for only half that amount.

Mr Miliband gave his most damning assessment of the sceptics yet, describing them as ”dangerous and deceitful”. He said: ”The approach of the climate saboteurs is to misuse data and mislead people. The sceptics are playing politics with science in a dangerous and deceitful manner. The evidence is clear and the time we have to act is short. To abandon this process now would lead to misery and catastrophe for millions.”

All of this would be hilarious, if it weren’t so serious. Here we have the prime minister of the UK, who hasn’t a clue about the scientific method, calling those who correctly question scientific data “flat earthers” – and Ed Miliband calling them “deceitful”. It’s nothing short of astonishing, and rather ironic given the deceit clearly going on in the AGW science community.

The reality is that Brown and Miliband are gullible fools, who believe anything and everything the IPCC, and all its scientists, tell them.

Read it here.

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AGW scientist calls Marc Morano an "a-hole" on live TV

6 December, 2009 by

As Anthony Watts puts it: Scientists Behaving Badly. Here’s the clip, yet again, on another flagship BBC current affairs programme, Newsnight (I wonder how long it will be before we get the same level of debate on Climategate on the ABC?):

Admittedly, Morano is annoying, but it’s no excuse for Andrew Watson’s behaviour.

See Morano’s page on this here.

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Liberals easily retain Bradfield and Higgins

5 December, 2009 by

And the only reason there was a swing to the Greens was, er, no ALP. So the predictions of voter anger over the blocking of the ETS don’t seem to have materialised. Perhaps the voters actually quite liked it?

UPDATE: In fact there was virtually no swing. As Andrew Bolt reports:

What an astonishing triumph for new Liberal leader and warming sceptic Tony Abbott. There was actually a swing to the Liberals – from last election’s 57.04 per cent of the two-party preferred vote to 57.57 per cent this time – despite:

  • A campaign dominated by the media coverage of the bitter rifts and leadership turmoil in the Liberal Party.
  • The retirment of a very popular local member in Peter Costello
  • Furious media promotion of the by-election as a referendum on the leadership of Tony Abbott, widely portrayed as a “Mad Monk” and warming denialist.
  • The imposition on voters of an unnecessary by-election, which in Jeff Kennett’s case in nearby Burwood saw the state Liberals actually lose a safe seat.
  • The selection by the Liberals of a low-profile candidate in Kelly O’Dwyer, against the high-profile Green in Clive Hamilton.
  • Blanket coverage for the Greens by the ABC in particular.
  • A media soundtrack of increasingly hysterical warnings about warming doom, including dying penguins at Phillip Island, cannibalising polar bears and record heat waves in Australia.
  • An accidental win of the leadership by Abbott by just one vote.
  • Immediate public criticism of his new policies by his defeated rival, Malcolm Turnbull.
  • Universal predictions by commentators and psephologists that the Liberals would take a hit, or even lose.

And the ABC’s headline this morning makes me laugh: Liberals escape voter backlash (source). The media predict something ridiculous, then when it doesn’t happen, the Libs have “escaped”.

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Stating the Obvious: carbon cuts "could hurt economy"

5 December, 2009 by

Herald Sun

Herald Sun

But hang on… surely this wonderful new green economy will create thousands of jobs, billions of dollars of investment, and everything in the environmental garden will by rosy, right? That’s what we’ve been told over and over again by the Rudd government, despite the fact that a bit of common sense would tell you that taxing energy will cause huge damage to any economy. Seems that it takes this long for the media to catch up with common sense:

IMF experts say the global economy stands to benefit from action against climate change, but warn that aggressive curbs on emissions could jeopardise the recovery without careful planning.

Days before a major climate summit gets underway in Copenhagen, the experts at the International Monetary Fund said a global pact would help the world’s poorest who face the worst effects of rising temperatures.

“Greater climate resilience can promote macroeconomic stability and alleviate poverty,” Michael Keen and Benjamin Jones of the global lender’s fiscal affairs department wrote in a staff position note.

But they also called for caution. They warned that sudden, large hikes in the costs of carbon emissions blamed for global warming could generate “unwelcome pressures on production costs and household incomes, thus dampening prospects for recovery”.

Preventing developing countries from using fossil fuels will consign millions if not billions of people back into a life of poverty – it’s a simple as that. There is no green economy panacea – it’s a myth.

Read it here.

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"Carbon intensity" – the new fudge factor

5 December, 2009 by

Tricked by carbon intensity

Tricked by carbon intensity

The media is full of headlines praising India and China for agreeing to cut carbon by this percentage or that percentage, but it’s only when you read down that you realise that they are referring to carbon intensity, which is carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP.

So when China says it will cut carbon by 40% by 2020, what it means is that it will actually increase emissions by about 25%, because GDP in developing countries such as China is going through the roof, but which is 40% less than it would have been.

And yet the media seem unable to see through the trick, reporting it as if it’s big news:

INDIA aims to reduce its carbon intensity by 2020 by up to 25 per cent compared with 2005, the country’s Environment Minister has announced, echoing similar commitments by China and the US before the Copenhagen climate change conference.

Jairam Ramesh reiterated India’s refusal to accept legally binding targets for reducing its carbon emissions or to agree to Western demands to set a date for when its emissions would peak. But he did announce a target for India’s unilateral efforts to reduce the quantity of carbon dioxide it produces per unit of GDP — known as its carbon intensity — and said that India would show flexibility at the summit.

The announcement was seen as a major shift in India’s negotiating position.

“The Planning Commission has concluded that we can have a 20 to 25 per cent reduction in emission intensity between 2005 and 2020,” Mr Ramesh said in a speech outlining India’s position at next week’s summit.

So whereas countries like the UK have unilaterally committed economic suicide by legislating an 80% reduction in actual emissions by 2050, India and China merely commit to increase emissions, but more slowly.

Read it here.

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BBC flagship current affairs programme runs "Climategate" debate

5 December, 2009 by

Debating CRU

Debating CRU

BBC radio’s flagship current affairs programme, Today, has aired a 12 minute debate with Jonathan Porritt, sceptic Philip Stott [amazingly], and the BBC’s environment correspondent, Richard Black.

As Biased-BBC puts it:

Porritt admitted through gritted teeth that there was something to investigate in Climategate (though of course still maintaining that “most scientists” say there is a consensus), while Stott skillfully painted the picture of why there are major doubts about the causation of warming, and that taxation of CO2 would not in any case solve the problem. (source)

Listen here.

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UN to investigate ClimateGate

5 December, 2009 by

Hardly impartial…

Hardly impartial…

Amazingly, the ABC did report this one! Don’t hold your breath, it will be the IPCC effectively investigating itself, so we can be pretty sure it will be a whitewash.

A top UN panel is to probe claims that British scientists sought to suppress data backing climate change sceptics’ views, its head said ahead of the the landmark Copenhagen summit.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the claims – which led a top expert to leave his post temporarily this week – were serious and needed to be investigated.

Professor Phil Jones has stood aside as head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, after emails allegedly calling into question the scientific basis for climate change fears were leaked onto the internet.

Hackers [It ain’t no hacker. This was an inside job – Ed] penetrated the centre’s network and posted online thousands of emails from researchers, including Professor Jones, ahead of the Copenhagen summit which starts Monday.

The CRU at the university in Norwich, eastern England, is a world-leader in the field. [Maybe that should be “was” – Ed]

Dr Pachauri, head of the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations panel since 2002, told BBC radio: “We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it.

“We certainly don’t want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail.” (source)

I won’t hold my breath. And at the same time, Australian scientists are doing just that: brushing it all under the carpet and hoping it will go away – all lovingly reported by the Sydney Morning Herald:

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, professor of marine science at the University of Queensland, said a few out-of-context quotes gained by illegally trawling through ”electronic garbage” did not undermine the huge amount of peer-reviewed scientific data on climate change.

”I think the denialist movement is so desperate, given the overwhelming conclusions of the science, that they’ll do anything,” he said. (source)

I think we all know who’s in denial now, Ove.

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Global warming "could enrage sharks"

4 December, 2009 by

"Grr, who turned up the heater?"

Enraged goldfish: "Grr, who turned up the heater?"

Stick with it. This journalist clearly hasn’t heard of Climategate and still believes every press release about global warming that lands on his desk.

Warmer ocean temperatures caused by global warming could [important word, that – Ed] cause sharks and other fish to become more aggressive, according to a new Australian study.

Research conducted by the University of New South Wales [Note to self: remember not to send kids to UNSW – Ed] found that a slight lift in water temperatures — just two or three degrees — can cause some fish to become up to 30 times more aggressive than they normally would be.

The studies were conducted on young damsel fish, but head researcher Dr Peter Biro told ninemsn it is possible that sharks could also undergo a similar transformation in warm water.

[And this is what happened next. The poor journo thought the story was just too boring with only damsel fish (whatever they are), so, desperate for an alarmist headline, asked the “scientist” if it would affect sharks, because sharks = scary. And the response below was just what was needed – phew. Scary headline in the bag – Ed]

“I would imagine that it might also affect sharks … we think it is linked to the metabolism of the fishes — it increases their need to feed,” Dr Biro said.

The research involved putting the damsel fish in varying temperatures of water and placing other fish behind glass to see how they reacted.

Dr Biro said it was “obvious” the warmer water had an effect.

“Some fish would literally charge at the glass,” he said.

“I’m quite confident that if the glass was not there they would have torn the other fish to shreds.”

So next time you see a flounder getting mugged by a marauding gang of barramundi, you’ll know why.

Read it here.

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