How not to answer questions Part 94 – Penny Wong

5 February, 2010 by

Tony Jones puts Wong through the mincer, and Wong is all at sea, dodging, weaving, avoiding, fudging, obfuscating, spinning, and above all, never, repeat never, answering the question asked – everything the Ruddites do so well to hoodwink the poor unsuspecting public. One of those occasions where it is both horrific and compulsive viewing. As that famous quote from the brilliant UK political satire The Thick of It puts it, when Jeremy Paxman mauls the junior minister for social affairs, Ben Swain:

“It’s like watching a lion rape a sheep … but in a bad way.”

Not pleasant viewing…

Good on ya, Tony. We’ll make a sceptic of you yet!

Catch it here if you can stand it (h/t Andrew Bolt)

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India's Ramesh: "There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism"

5 February, 2010 by

Climate sense from Jairam Ramesh

India abandons the IPCC ship, which is listing heavily to starboard, taking on water, and heading for the bottom of the ocean. Rather than base climate policy on the discredited pronouncements of the IPCC, India has wisely decided to set up its own climate research bodies. Hello, hello, testing, testing – anyone listening to this in Canberra?? Nope. Eyes and ears firmly closed.

India has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr R K Pachauri.

The Indian government’s move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.

The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.

In India the false claims have heightened tensions between Dr Pachauri and the government, which had earlier questioned his glacial melting claims. In Autumn, its environment minister Mr Jairam Ramesh said while glacial melting in the Himalayas was a real concern, there was evidence that some were actually advancing in the face of global warming.

Dr Pachauri had dismissed challenges like these as based on “voodoo science”, but last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalised the IPC chairman even further.

He announced the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s ‘third ice cap’, and an ‘Indian IPCC’ to use ‘climate science’ to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.

“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. [Yes, and the IPCC crossed it years ago – Ed] I am for climate science. I think people misused [the] IPCC report, [the] IPCC doesn’t do the original research which is one of the weaknesses … they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks.

Read it here.

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ABC labels Pachauri "leading global warming scientist"

5 February, 2010 by

Wrong again

As the IPCC desperately tries to paper over the cracks, the ABC promotes Pachauri:

The United Nations’ top climate official has backed leading global warming scientist Rajendra Pachauri, saying he should ignore calls to resign over errors in a key 2007 report. (source)

Pachauri isn’t a leading global warming scientist. He isn’t a global warming scientist at all. In fact, he isn’t even a scientist. He’s a railway engineer.

Your ABC – for when facts don’t matter.

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IPCC: sea level blunder angers Dutch environment minister

5 February, 2010 by

Only the purple is below sea level

Clog-gate? Windmill-gate? Edam-gate? Yet another error in IPCC AR4, this time relating to sea levels in Holland:

A United Nations report wrongly claimed that more than half of the Netherlands is currently below sea level.

In fact, just 20 percent of the country consists of polders that are pumped dry, and which are at risk of flooding if global warming causes rising sea levels. Dutch Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer has ordered a thorough investigation into the quality of the climate reports which she uses to base her policies on.

Climate-sceptic MPs were quick to react. Conservative MP Helma Neppérus and Richard de Mos from the right-wing Freedom Party want the minister to explain to parliament how these figures were used to decide on national climate policy. “This may invalidate all claims that the last decades were the hottest ever,” Mr De Mos said.

The incorrect figures which date back to 2007 were revealed on Wednesday by the weekly Vrij Nederland. The Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency told reporters that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) added together two figures supplied by the agency: the area of the Netherlands which is below sea-level and the area which is susceptible to flooding. In fact, these areas overlap, so the figures should not have been combined to produce the 55 percent quoted by the IPCC.

The discovery comes just a week after a prediction about glaciers in the Himalayas proved wrong. Rather than disappearing by 2035, as IPCC reports claim, the original research underlying the report predicted the mountain ice would last until 2350. (source)

The Dutch environment minister isn’t impressed:

Dutch Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer says she will no longer tolerate errors by climate researchers. She expressed her anger to Dutch researchers who presented their annual report on the state of the climate on Wednesday. (source)

Can you imagine Penny Wong having the guts to say the same? No, me neither, because she, like Rudd and Co, is blinded by dogma.

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Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

5 February, 2010 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

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Pachauri: hopes sceptics "apply asbestos to their faces"

4 February, 2010 by

Nothing like a bit of asbestos for the complexion

To all those commentators calling for Pachauri’s resignation from the IPCC: please stop. The longer this loony remains in charge, the more damage will be done, and the less chance of it ever recovering. From a recent Financial Times interview:

FT: In recent weeks, many articles in the British media have questioned aspects of the IPCC reports and criticised your conduct personally as the chairman. Do you think there is an organised effort to demolish your reputation and the reputation of the IPCC?

RP: It doesn’t take a genius to arrive at the conclusion that apparently this is carefully orchestrated. These things are certainly not happening at random. The one unfortunate thing that has happened is the mistake that the IPCC made on the glaciers. We have acknowledged that; we have put that on our web site.

But there is absolutely nothing [else] but I would say [there are] nefarious designs behind people trying to attack me with lies, falsehoods [alleging] that I have business interests. I have clarified that in very precise terms. Once I did that, they shifted their focus on [to] my institute, which, may I say – with all humility but some degree of pride – is an institution that the world now looks up to and admires. We function under the laws of this country. We are looked up to by everybody in every section of society, including the highest levels of government not only over here, but in other parts of the world.

What they are indulging in is skulduggery of the worst kind. I’m reasonably sure that very soon people will realise the truth and they would also question the credentials of some of the people who are behind them.

And are you all sitting down for the best bit?

I don’t want to get down to a personal level [but I will anyway – Ed], but all you need to do is look at their backgrounds. They are people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder – I hope that they apply it to their faces every day – and people who say that the only way to deal with HIV/Aids is to screen the population on a regular basis and isolate those who are infected.

There is clearly a very obvious intent behind this whole thing. I’m certainly not going to be affected by it. I’m totally in the clear [Ha, ha, my aching sides – Ed]. I have absolutely nothing but indifference to what these people are doing.

Excellent work, mate. All I can say is “Keep it up”.

Read it here (subscription may be required) (h/t Tom Nelson)

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UK scientist "hid flaws in Chinese weather data"

3 February, 2010 by

In the poo again

This report comes from the Sydney Morning Herald, amazingly, but it includes its standard disclaimer on this kind of story:

“The allegations do not undermine the large body of evidence for human-made global warming.”

No, of course they don’t. Nothing ever does in Fairfax-land, does it? But still, the story is another nail in the IPCC’s credibility:

A BRITISH climate scientist at the centre of the hacked emails controversy has been accused of trying to hide flaws in Chinese weather data used in a scientific paper on the effect of cities on global warming.

The 1990 paper, which also included temperature records from Australia, was cited in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as evidence that urbanisation only made a small contribution to rising temperatures.

The Guardian investigated more than 2000 emails hacked [leaked – Ed] last year from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, many of them sent by Professor Jones, its director.

It reported that Professor Jones had withheld information about the 50 years of Chinese data when faced with freedom-of-information requests by climate sceptics.

They wanted to know the location of 84 Chinese weather stations used by Professor Jones and his colleague, Wei-Chyung Wang, of the University of Albany, to argue that rising temperatures in China were due to climate change, not expanding cities. When Professor Jones released the information, no location was given for the stations that were supposed to be in the countryside.

An investigation by Professor Wang’s university cleared him of any wrongdoing, but the emails reveal Professor Jones’s colleagues in the unit were concerned by his reliance on the Chinese data.

The controversy could lead to a review of the influential paper, published in Nature, which had four other authors, including Dr Michael Coughlan, head of the National Climate Centre at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

You have to ask, if the case for global warming is so strong and the science is so settled, why is such conduct necessary? It’s a simple question.

Read it here.

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Comment: Abbott's uncomfortable climate policy

3 February, 2010 by

Abbott v Rudd

Well, the Coalition have finally revealed their climate policy, and it looks as uneasy as one would expect. At least it’s not a massive new tax a la ETS, but the gestures towards cutting carbon dioxide (well done to TA for making this small but important point) are really just that. TA looked uncomfortable on The 7.30 Report last night, defending a policy that you know he doesn’t really believe in, and Kerry O’Brien succeeded in exposing that conflict.

The problem is that, deep down, TA is a true sceptic [Bravo for that – Ed]. He knows that the climate science is corrupted and that the projections for dangerous global warming are mostly hype. However, he doesn’t believe he can say this in the current political climate – which is probably right. Not doing anything would give Labor and the Greens a field day – branding the Opposition “deniers”, “flat earthers” and every other warmist ad hominem known to man. It would also go down very badly with the public at the moment, who have been so utterly brainwashed by the government and a media in its pocket that they still believe global warming needs action. This is despite everything that has happened since Climategate in November, and the disaster of Copenhagen in December.

This, however, is starting to change. The Australian continues to print sceptical articles, and even the Fairfax press have begun doing the same. The barrage of stories exposing incompetence and manipulation or suppression of data in the IPCC reports continues unabated. The IPCC has been exposed, not as a body of scientific impartiality, but of extremist environmental advocacy.

In time, the weight of evidence against the “consensus” will eventually percolate through to the public, despite the media’s increasingly unsuccessful attempts at its suppression. Eventually (and I hope it happens before the election), the collective public penny will drop, and there will be a unanimous cry of “We’ve been conned.”

So TA should bide his time and continue with his “interim” policy, until the political climate and public opinion can accept what should be the proper Coalition position: that climate change is a non-problem.

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Tony Abbott unveils Coalition climate change policy

2 February, 2010 by

From the ABC:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has placed a $1 billion emissions reduction fund at the heart of the Coalition’s new $3.2b climate change policy.

Announcing the policy today, Mr Abbott said the Coalition would use the fund and its policy to invest in direct measures to help the public, industry and farmers cut emissions.

Those measures would include planting 20 million trees, a $1,000 solar panel rebate and soil carbon storage.

Mr Abbott said the plan would be simpler, cheaper and more effective than the Government’s emissions trading scheme and would deliver the same 5 per cent cut in emissions by 2020.

“Our policy will deliver the same emissions reductions as the Government’s, but without the Government’s great big new tax,” he said.

The policy would be funded from the Budget over the forward estimates but Mr Abbott is yet to explain where the Coalition would find the savings to pay for it.

But he says the Coalition’s policy is vastly cheaper than the ETS, which he says will cost $40b over the same period.

“It’s careful, it’s costed, and it’s capped,” Mr Abbott said. (source)

And Tony Abbott has used his first question time as Opposition leader to goad Kevin Rudd into a debate on climate change, which Rudd continues to shy away from:

Mr Abbott, who earlier released the coalition’s long-awaited climate change policy, opened question time by directly challenging the prime minister.

“When I first challenged the prime minister to a public debate on climate change, he refused, saying the coalition had no policy,” he told parliament.

“Well, we have a policy which is simpler cheaper and clearer than the government’s.

“Does the prime minister have the guts to have a nationally-televised debate about climate change?” (source)

Answer: NO. And to finish off, Rudd comes out with his usual evasive nonsense:

Mr Rudd said the opposition had some simple questions to answer: Did it understand the science behind climate change, how did it propose to tackle it, and was it fair dinkum?

“Was it fair dinkum?” Oh per-lease. And I think the Opposition understands the science (or now should we say, the lack of science) better than you do, clearly.

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SMH spins Paul Sheehan's article to discredit Monckton

2 February, 2010 by

More spin than a launderette

Yesterday, Paul Sheehan came up with a great article listing ten “anti-anti-commandments” and Lord Monckton’s “verbal bombs”. Here is an example:

1. The pin-up species of global warming, the polar bear, is increasing in number, not decreasing.

Polar bear numbers have surged since hunting was largely banned in the 1970s. When Tim Flannery predicted that polar bears would be extinct within 25 years, he was challenged by Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the polar bear expert for the Canadian federal territory of Nunavut, which covers most of the polar bear’s Canadian habitat.

Mitchell wrote in 2006: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present… it is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.”

A counter perspective: Last year, at the latest meeting of the world’s peak polar bear study group, the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, scientists reported that eight of the 19 sub-populations of polar bears were declining, compared with five declining populations in 2005. Of the other 11 sub-populations, three were stable, one was increasing, and there was insufficient data to describe a trend in the remaining seven.

Polar bear populations rebounded dramatically after over-hunting was restricted in the 1970s, but the threat posed to polar bears now is completely different – a loss of the sea ice habitat that is essential to their survival.

Lord Monckton’s Sydney bomb-toss: “There are five times as many polar bears now than there were 40 years ago.”

But strangely, today, the article has been rewritten, with the “consensus view” getting the last word as a rebuttal to Monckton’s points:

1. The pin-up species of global warming, the polar bear, is increasing in number, not decreasing.

Viscount Christopher Monckton, the world’s leading provocateur against the arguments of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said during his current visit to Australia: “There are five times as many polar bears now than there were 40 years ago.”

The counter-punch: Last year, at the latest meeting of the world’s peak polar bear study group, the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, scientists reported that eight of the 19 sub-populations of polar bears were declining, compared with five declining populations in 2005. Of the other 11 sub-populations, three were stable, one was increasing, and there was insufficient data to describe a trend in the remaining seven.

Polar bear populations rebounded dramatically after over-hunting was restricted in the 1970s, but the threat posed to polar bears now is completely different – a loss of the sea ice habitat that is essential to their survival.

The other nine points are the same. And there’s a strange note at the end as well, palming off the original article, which appeared in the Herald to The National Times:

Note: All the claims and retorts were published by The National Times yesterday in a companion piece to my column on Lord Monckton’s visit to Australia.

Very peculiar. Seems that those at the Sydney Moonbat Herald couldn’t “bear” to see their precious arguments destroyed by Christopher Monckton, so they’ve rejigged the article as a rebuttal to Monckton and made sure the warmist view gets the last word in each case… Hardly surprising, however, and just shows the lengths the warm-mongering media will go to to stop the truth getting out.

Read the two versions here (at the SMH) and here.

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