The Sunday Age: Climate Agenda update

3 September, 2011 by

Set the agenda

The Sunday Age’s Climate Agenda poll has finished, with ACM’s question finishing overall third (see here) with 1436 votes. Just a reminder, here is the question again:

It is accepted that man’s carbon dioxide emissions are causing an amount of warming [of] the climate. However, the magnitude of any future warming is highly uncertain. The IPCC acknowledges that its understanding of a number of key natural climate drivers and feedbacks is “low” or “very low”. Why is it, therefore, that the Fairfax press is reluctant to engage with and investigate this uncertainty with an open-minded impartiality, and instead continues to publish articles based on a rigid editorial agenda that “the science is settled”?

And ironically enough, the Sunday Age’s own home page for the Climate Agenda experiment proves the point perfectly, just by the collection of climate change stories they have assembled to illustrate the issues:

Climate change sceptics endangered: study

Climate change sceptics are an endangered species in Australia, a national survey shows.

Is this the solution to the impact of climate change?

New coastal housing built near Portland will need to be ”relocatable” to meet the threat from climate change sea level rises, storm surges and erosion

Rudd pans climate-change sceptics

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd says anyone who still doubts the science of climate change should visit northern Europe.

Treasured Bordeaux wines under threat

Bordeaux’s fabled wine grapes are under threat from global warming, climate experts told a meeting of industry leaders

UK storm blamed on climate change

A British study concludes for the first time that an extreme storm there is likely to have doubled in intensity due to human induced climate change.

Mangroves shield against climate change

Mangroves, which have declined by up to half over the past 50 years, are an important bulkhead against climate change, a study released yesterday has shown for the first time.

Climate change is real. Let’s deal with it

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s announcement of a carbon tax has unleashed another round in the climate change fight.

I also notice they have contacted the first and second place commenters and have quoted them in this article, I wonder when my phone will ring…!

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"Blog-review": Journal editor resigns because of "internet discussions"

3 September, 2011 by

Where's the process?

Is this a new low? The death of scientific integrity and the scientific process, happening right before our eyes. A journal editor resigns because he dared to publish a sceptical paper (Spencer & Braswell 2011 – see here), which challenged the “consensus”. Why did he resign? Because internet discussion sites said the paper should not have been published. His resignation statement is astonishing:

Unfortunately, as many climate researchers and engaged observers of the climate change debate pointed out in various internet discussion fora, the paper by Spencer and Braswell [1] that was recently published in Remote Sensing is most likely problematic in both aspects and should therefore not have been published.

After having become aware of the situation, and studying the various pro and contra arguments, I agree with the critics of the paper. Therefore, I would like to take the responsibility for this editorial decision and, as a result, step down as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Remote Sensing.

“Various internet discussion fora”? Is this guy for real? So a few trolls on warmist sites, such as RealClimate and Climate Progress, convinced the editor of a peer-review journal to step down because he published a paper which challenged the consensus? “I agree with the critics of the paper”? Is that how peer review works? Editor of journal decides that the trolls are right and that’s that? No, if there were problems with the paper, they should be refuted by further peer-reviewed papers, not by the whim of one editor who chooses to fall on his sword to make a point.

And this:

In other words, the problem I see with the paper by Spencer and Braswell is not that it declared a minority view (which was later unfortunately much exaggerated by the public media) but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents. This latter point was missed in the review process, explaining why I perceive this paper to be fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal. (source – PDF)

As Roy Spencer points out in his response to this bizarre sequence of events:

But the paper WAS precisely addressing the scientific arguments made by our opponents, and showing why they are wrong! That was the paper’s starting point! We dealt with specifics, numbers, calculations…while our critics only use generalities and talking points. There is no contest, as far as I can see, in this debate. If you have some physics or radiative transfer background, read the evidence we present, the paper we were responding to, and decide for yourself.

If some scientists would like do demonstrate in their own peer-reviewed paper where *anything* we wrote was incorrect, they should submit a paper for publication. Instead, it appears the IPCC gatekeepers have once again put pressure on a journal for daring to publish anything that might hurt the IPCC’s politically immovable position that climate change is almost entirely human-caused. I can see no other explanation for an editor resigning in such a situation. (source)

I would like to see more evidence for the link to the IPCC that Spencer claims, although it is well known that there are “gatekeepers” at the main climate journals to make sure that anything that challenges the consensus is filtered out – clearly the system failed here. But this shows the extent of the corruption of the peer-review process, that an editor resigns (possibly under some external pressure to do so) rather than following the proper procedure for challenging or rebutting a scientific paper.

At this point it’s Warmists 1, Sceptics 0. Another sad day for the integrity of science.

UPDATE: Roger Pielke Sr responds to the story here  (with links to crowing articles at the BBC and Guardian), but makes the same point as above:

“The place to refute a published paper is in peer-reviewed papers, not in blogs (or the media). If the paper is not robust, it appropriately should be responded to by paper, not by the resignation of the Editor. In my view, he made a poor decision which has further damaged the scientific process of vetting new research results.”

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Quote of the Day: Julia Gillard

2 September, 2011 by

Quote of the Day

She’s been spinning hopeless Labor policies for so long, she has now started spinning her own failures into achievements:

“I’m not going anywhere, I’m the best person to do this job and I’ll continue to do it and what this job is about leading the nation to a better future.”

Well, if she’s the best, I’d truly hate to see the worst. And as for “not going anywhere”, not your decision, I’m afraid. We may well see the Return of Rudd (cue scary music).

Read it here.

Editor’s Note: Apologies but the link above is to The Australian which as we all know is just a mouthpiece for evil right-wingers and Tea Party creationists intent on destroying Labor, and which should be shut down straight away, especially since there isn’t enough bias in the media favourable towards Labor and the Left (if you just happen to exclude all of the ABC and all of Fairfax, and all of the BBC and all of the majority of news organisations in any country you care to name). See here.

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China urged to take more climate action, so Australia will be "left behind"

1 September, 2011 by

"Low carbon" China

In public, Labor claims that China is at the forefront of tackling climate change, and therefore Australia will be “left behind” unless we enact a pointless carbon tax. However, in the shadows (as revealed by Wikileaks), Australia has secretly complained to China about their lack of real commitment to such action. In other words, please improve your action on climate change so we can use it to justify our own:

THE Gillard government has always publicly insisted China is taking significant steps to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but WikiLeaks cables reveal senior Australian bureaucrats complained privately to China about the ”lack of ambition” in that country’s targets.

A confidential cable sent from the US embassy in Canberra in January last year, weeks after the disastrous Copenhagen climate change conference, reported the then secretary of the Department of Climate Change, Dr Martin Parkinson, said his department ”expressed concern to Chinese diplomats over the lack of ambition in the [Chinese] stated goal of a 40 to 45 per cent reduction in carbon intensity by 2020.” [ACM Note: don’t forget, “carbon [dioxide] intensity” is emissions per unit GDP, and since China’s GDP is going through the roof, emissions in absolute terms will continue to rise]

The 40 to 45 per cent reduction in emissions intensity target was pledged by China at Copenhagen and remains that country’s target. The government’s climate change adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut, judged it to be more than China’s ”fair share” of global emission reductions.

Dr Parkinson, now Treasury secretary, told US officials Australia’s emissions trading legislation would be ”seriously jeopardised” if China did not inscribe its target in the UN agreement. China eventually did, but the legislation failed anyway. (source)

Yet another example of a government addicted to spin, that will say one thing to the electorate, and yet believe precisely the opposite in private.

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Labor: clueless on climate, abysmal on asylum seekers

1 September, 2011 by

Not a climate story, but really THE story here in Australia today, is the High Court’s demolition of Gillard’s asylum seeker policy, which, in brief, was an agreement to send 800 boat arrivals to Malaysia in exchange for 4000 genuine refugees. The policy is now in tatters, having been ruled unlawful – the 800 will stay in Australia, but we still must accept the 4000 from Malaysia.

On climate, the government has treated the electorate with contempt, using blatant lies to mislead the public about the carbon tax. In the case of asylum seekers, the Malaysia solution was formulated SOLELY to cling on to political pride – the Gillard government was unable to bring itself to admit that the former Coalition’s Pacific solution actually worked. The Malaysia solution was therefore labelled the “anywhere but Nauru” policy by the Coalition, after the processing centre previously used, very successfully, by the government of John Howard. And now the whole thing has been torn down, leaving yet another key Labor policy area shredded.

This government is incompetent, arrogant, contemptuous, disconnected, compromised, and, thanks to the ongoing grubby saga of Craig Thomson, sleazy as well. When will it end? Somebody spare us.

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UK: coldest summer since 1993

31 August, 2011 by

Not exactly Bondi, is it?

From the Weather Isn’t Climate Department. Ah, memories of an English summer’s day on the beach when I was a kid – before Global Warming, that is: covered in goosebumps, sand in the ice-cream, the bucket and spade are halfway to France, with the beach-ball not far behind, desperately trying to stop Granny’s deck chair from taking off, and now it’s drizzling. Idyllic. Looks like those halcyon days might be on the way back:

As Britons return to work today after a soggy Bank Holiday weekend, official weather data reveals that average temperatures were significantly down on recent years.

The UK’s average temperature from June 1 to August 15 was only 57F (13.9C) – the lowest for 13 years.

For central England the average was 59F (15C), making it the coolest summer since 1993.

Helen Waite, a Met Office forecaster, said: “The average temperature for central England this summer has been just 15C – this sort of temperature is normally typical of September.

“Generally speaking, you would expect to see temperatures of at least 17C for this time of year.”

Source.

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Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change – Interim Report 2011

30 August, 2011 by

For an up to date summary of the huge body of science that challenges the “consensus”, check out the NIPCC report’s latest update here.

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Bravo! ABC's balanced report on CLOUD

29 August, 2011 by

No bias! Hooray!

Credit where credit is due. I don’t want to knock Auntie just for the hell of it, so I am very happy to shower ABC Science with praise (OK, bit strong perhaps, maybe just a gentlemanly “well done” will suffice) for a balanced and sensible report on the CLOUD experiment at CERN.

No alarmism, no rubbishing the results, no questioning of the funding, no sneering comment from David Karoly or Andy Pitman, no pompous soundbites from Robyn Williams or Bernie Hobbs, no caveat that it’s still “really” all down to CO2 – none of that, just a fair and reasonable reporting of the results. Excellent.

Climate scientists have discovered a mystery factor in climate change models, following new research at the CERN particle accelerator, near Geneva.

First results from the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets) experiment show that trace vapours in the atmosphere, which until now had been thought to account for all aerosol formation, actually only explain a minute proportion of atmospheric aerosol production.

The research, published in the journal Nature, also shows that ionisation from cosmic rays may play a significant role in the process.

Understanding how new aerosol particles form in the atmosphere, and the effect these particles have on climate, is one of the big challenges of atmospheric science.

[ACM editor falls off chair at this point]. See? You can do it. It really isn’t that hard. Well done to author Carl Holm for this piece.

Read the rest here.

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Official: climate change makes you crazy

29 August, 2011 by

No climate crisis, no Climate Institute

It certainly makes me crazy – listening to the nonsensical ramblings of Gillard, Combet, Flannery, Brown, Milne, Gore and Garnaut is enough to send even the most level-headed individual completely round the bend.

But here we have the totally impartial Climate Institute, with no vested interest in the outcome, clearly, commissioning a report on the effect of climate change on the population’s mental health. So given the report’s provenance, was there ever any chance that the conclusion would be anything other than alarmist? No, because with no climate crisis, there would be no Climate Institute.

RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.

The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.

As many as one in five people reported ”emotional injury, stress and despair” in the wake of these events.

The report, A Climate of Suffering: The Real Cost of Living with Inaction on Climate Change, called the past 15 years a ”preview of life under unrestrained global warming”.

”While cyclones, drought, bushfires and floods are all a normal part of Australian life, there is no doubt our climate is changing,” the report says.

”For instance, the intensity and frequency of bushfires is greater [no evidence. More to do with idiotic green policies prohibiting land clearing – Ed]. This is a ‘new normal’, for which the past provides little guidance …

”Moreover, recent conditions are entirely consistent with the best scientific predictions: as the world warms so the weather becomes wilder [no evidence – Ed], with big consequences for people’s health and well-being.”

How many nonsensical statements can you find? The only sensible statement is “cyclones, drought bushfires and floods are all a normal part of Australian life”. Yes, have been for thousands of years and will continue to be for thousands more.

This is total junk science, reported gleefully by Fairfax (where else?).

Read it here.

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Gore apes Combet: compares sceptics to "racists"

29 August, 2011 by

Al "Three Monitors" Gore

Remember Greg Combet nonsensically branding the Coalition’s position on climate a “white carbon policy” a few days ago? Now we have Al Gore (who he? – Ed) comparing sceptics with racists.

Gore, like Combet, has no arguments left and has abandoned any pretence of his cause being grounded on some kind of scientific basis. Now it’s all about morals, a sure sign that he, like Combet, Gillard etc, is a busted flush. Gore is now fully unhinged, desperate to keep the climate bandwagon rolling to protect his green investments:

“There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”

“We have to win the conversation on climate,” Gore added.

When Bogusky questioned the analogy, asking if the scientific reasoning behind climate change skeptics might throw a wrench into the good and evil comparison with racism, Gore did not back down.

“I think it’s the same where the moral component is concerned and where the facts are concerned I think it is important to get that out there, absolutely,” Gore said.

As usual when figures like Gore and Combet try to justify their belief in the climate religion by resorting to ridiculous comparisons to issues of race or morality, we should be satisfied that their argument is well and truly lost.

Read it here (thanks to WUWT).

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