Climate Nonsense from Penny Wong

2 February, 2010 by

My denial is this big

I think The Australian is publishing this for a laugh, to syphon off what little credibility the Rudd government’s climate plan still has left before the latest ETS vote. And really, who gives a monkey’s what the Wong-bot thinks? Her memory card is stuck in pre-Copenhagen, pre-Climategate, pre-Amazongate, pre-Glaciergate, pre-Tony Abbott mode, and predictably enough she regurgitates all the old, tired arguments, all of them now hollow. But she starts with what must be the most hilarious understatement of the decade:

COPENHAGEN did not deliver the perfect agreement.

Not perfect? It was a fiasco, a disaster, a laughing stock. Such is the denial (sorry to use that word, but hey, if the cap fits…) in Wong’s CPU that she cannot even admit to the most obvious facts! Then its time to wheel out the climate “records”:

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Meteorology released its 2009 annual climate statement. It found 2009 was the second hottest year in Australia on record and ended our hottest decade. In Australia, each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the last.

This is not a flash in the pan. It continues the trend.

Globally, 14 of the 15 warmest years on record occurred between 1995 and 2009. As a continent that is already hot and dry, the implications for Australia are profound.

What can you expect from someone with only a primary school understanding of science, as Lord Monckton puts it? Do we really need to go through this again? Oh, OK then. “Record” means in the last 150 years. Big freaking deal. It doesn’t include any of the previous warm periods (of which there were many). And so what if each decade is warmer than the last? What would you expect? We’re coming out of a Little Ice Age. Duh. And even given that, the satellite record shows temperature stasis since 2001. What’s that, Penny? You’ve never heard of the satellite record? You prefer to rely on fudged data from surface stations such as GISS and GHCN? And then, even more denial:

It is clear the global trend is towards greater action to combat climate change, not less.

And on emissions trading, more than 30 countries already have an emissions trading scheme in operation and others, including the US, Japan and South Korea, are working towards implementing their own schemes.

No it isn’t. The trend is precisely the opposite. The majority of those 30 countries cited are in the EU scheme, by the way. China and India may talk the talk, but they (bizarrely) put alleviating poverty and raising standards of living above pointless emissions trading schemes. And the chances of the US passing climate legislation are disappearing faster than the Amazon rainforest. And we know where the Australian ETS is heading…

We know we must put a limit on our emissions. Nothing at Copenhagen changes that fundamental fact. And the cheapest and most effective way to do that remains the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. John Howard knew it, Peter Costello knew it, Malcolm Turnbull knew it and the Rudd government knows it.

Yes, and times change Penny. Tony Abbott has realised this. You and Kevin Rudd (and Malcolm Turnbull) haven’t. With luck, your obsession with passing this pointless ETS will consign you and your dismal government, at the next election, to the rubbish bin of history, where it truly belongs.

Read it here.

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Climate Institute: Impact of ETS on food prices "minimal"

1 February, 2010 by

No we don't, we peddle self-serving propaganda

Gee, there’s a real surprise, ain’t it? An alarmist organisation whose sole existence is thanks to the overblown “climate crisis” comes up with a report that justifies its own existence and reassures everyone that the massive, unnecessary new tax will have far less of an effect on food prices than the evils of “global warming”. And as usual, the ABC fails to see the conflict and publishes it all unquestioningly, and timed perfectly to coincide with the return of parliament tomorrow, undermining the Coalition’s opposition to the ETS (of course, the ABC is stuffed to the gills with Lefties from Kerry O’Brien down [or is it up?], so any opportunity to bolster Rudd and Labor at the expense of the other parties is welcomed with open arms):

A new report has found failing to tackle climate change will have a greater impact on supermarket prices than an emissions trading scheme (ETS).

The report from independent [Ha ha! My aching sides – Ed] think-tank the Climate Institute found extreme weather events, caused by climate change, will lead to food price rises in the future.

The report says these increases will be far greater than the 1 per cent weekly price rise, or $1.30 a week, expected to flow from an ETS.

It predicts extreme weather events, like drought, will become more common as the Earth’s temperature rises. [Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. By the way, did I mention that’s wrong? – Ed

Climate Institute chief executive John Connor says tackling climate change, through an ETS, will save money in the long run.

“What this report shows is that food prices are far more at risk from extremes in the weather and the climate, extremes that will increase with climate change, than they are with any ETS or a system which puts a price on carbon pollution,” Mr Connor said.

And then we have the usual outright L-words:

He says climate change is already having an effect on supermarket prices.

“Climate change is not just about warmer weather, it’s about wilder weather,” he said.

“And the drought, cyclones, extreme weather events will increase over time. [That’s a big fat L-word – Ed]

“We’ve had that experience in Australia, of course. We’ve had the tripling of the price of bananas from Cyclone Larry. We’ve had the drought raise lamb prices around 60 per cent.” (source)

I get tired of writing this: there is no link between “global warming” and increased hurricanes, floods or other extreme weather. And there isn’t a climate scientist on the planet that would link Cyclone Larry with global warming. But who cares about the facts? Certainly not the Climate Institute, which is feathering its own nest, and certainly not the ABC which will publish any old rubbish as long as it fits its pre-conceived warm-mongering agenda.

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School Gate? IPCC claims based on "student essay"

31 January, 2010 by

Latest IPCC source?

What next? Will they find some 8 year-old’s science homework [Surely “religious education homework?” – Ed] buried in there somewhere, corners ripped from where the dog tried to eat it? Beyond parody, and revealed by the tireless work of the UK Sunday Telegraph which seems to have regained its proper compass:

The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.

The IPCC’s remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.

In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.

0/10 – Must try harder.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Baker’s Delight are on the same track with their latest advert – but they believed it to be fiction, of course:

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Abbott: 4 degree rise "not the greatest moral challenge"

31 January, 2010 by

Needs a new climate adviser

You have to wonder who is advising Tony Abbott on climate. This kind of comment plays straight into the warmists’ hands, especially as we wait for the Coalition’s climate policy, due on Tuesday:

It will deliver the same carbon pollution reduction as Labor’s emissions trading scheme but for a “comparatively modest cost”, he told a Young Liberals convention in Adelaide on Saturday.

Mr Abbott also mocked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for declaring climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time.

“It’s an important issue but even if dire predictions are right and average temperatures around the globe rise by four degrees over the century, it’s still not the ‘great moral challenge’ of our time – as Mr Rudd has described it on 14 occasions – let alone the ‘greatest’ moral challenge of our time – as Mr Rudd has described it at least four times,” Mr Abbott said.

“Adapting to changing rainfall patterns, for example, will be hard but it won’t supplant the threat of war, injustice, disease and want as the biggest problems with which humanity must grapple.”

And, naturally, here is the response:

The Climate Institute’s chief executive John Connor said it was reckless and ridiculous for Mr Abbott to be relaxed about a four-degree rise in global temperatures.

“He’s missed the link that such an increase will, in fact, lead to greater insecurity and instability around the world and particularly in our region.

“It will lead to very significant public health impacts and disease.”

And I’d have to agree that a 4 Celsius rise would probably have an enormous effect on the planet. Tony Abbott has tacitly admitted that the “dire projections” of the IPCC have some validity, whereas in reality the credibility of the alarmist science is disappearing faster than a Himalayan glacier. The point he should have made is that Rudd’s “great moral challenge” could not be based on flawed models and dodgy science.

Read it here.

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ABC's new climate expert: Osama Bin Laden

30 January, 2010 by

"And now for the weather…"

But hang on… he isn’t a climatologist, is he? Where are his peer-reviewed papers? Oh, wait, that doesn’t matter when it’s a warmist, does it? They only worry about that kind of thing when it’s a sceptic:

Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has blamed industrial nations for global warming, and urged a boycott of the US dollar to end “slavery,” in an audio tape aired by Al-Jazeera television.

“All industrial nations, mainly the big ones, are responsible for the crisis of global warming,” bin Laden said in the message attributed to him by the pan-Arab news channel based in Doha.

In an unusual message possibly timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, he warned of the impact of global warming by saying that “discussing climate change is not an intellectual luxury, but a reality.”

“This is a message to the whole world about those who are causing climate change, whether deliberately or not, and what we should do about that,” he said.

The Al Qaeda leader then slammed the US administration under former president George W Bush for not signing the Kyoto protocol on combating climate change.

“Bush the son, and the (US) Congress before him, rejected this agreement, only to satisfy the big companies,” he said.

ABC: The Absolute BS Corporation.

Read it here.

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ABC: Geoengineering scoop?

29 January, 2010 by

Climate alarmism 24/7

“Paint roofs white to cool cities.”

Sorry, old news.

And again.

And again.

That’s “Your Their ABC” – right up to date with the breaking news…

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Video: Lord Monckton in Sydney

29 January, 2010 by

I didn’t record the entire presentation (I didn’t have a tripod with me), but I have put together a few clips of the introductions, and Lord Monckton’s conclusion.

UPDATE: I feel I should add that I acknowledge there are a number of things about Lord Monckton’s delivery which cause me some concern. Whilst he has many sensible things to say, his presentation could very easily turn your average Australian man or woman in the street off. Things such as (a) splashing a coat of arms around on his Powerpoint slides, (b) delivering long speeches in Latin, and, as has been mentioned elsewhere, (c) the overly emotive and cloying conclusion, which somehow rings very hollow. We need people like him to get the message across, but in a way that doesn’t fall into the same traps as the alarmists. See Janet Albrechtson’s comments here: Heated moments mar Monckton.

Part 1:

Part 2:


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Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

29 January, 2010 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

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Thursday's links

28 January, 2010 by

Back-to-school mode means that posting will be a bit patchy for a while. In the mean time, here are some essential reads for today:

I also had the pleasure of attending Lord Monckton’s presentation at the Sheraton in Sydney last night, and met Lord Monckton, Ian Plimer and Alan Jones. I hope to put a report up with some video that I took whilst there, but briefly, it was packed. I was one of the last to be admitted, and the ballroom was full, probably between 800 and 1000 crammed in. Jones introduced Plimer, who then introduced Monckton, who gave a long presentation. There followed a Q & A session that I was unable to stay for.

More to follow.

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Shock: SMH publishes sceptical climate article

27 January, 2010 by

Turning sceptical?

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are to the global warming religion what L Ron Hubbard is to scientology, so to see even a few shards of agnosticism creeping in is fairly surprising, and encouraging:

The claims made about the science have been rash, asserting dogmatic certainty about human-induced warming when the reality is that the overall picture is quite unclear. This has now backfired, with the IPCC admitting mistakes in its 2007 report, and the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, which the IPCC has drawn heavily upon, shown to have been, at the least, devious in the results it has made public.

There may be some link between the rashness of the global warming campaign and the haplessness of the politics that has followed. The best current bet is that, after Copenhagen, emission controls is dead as a serious international issue. And further, only some environmental disaster that can be convincingly linked to climate change will rekindle it. The ”sceptics” have won the politics.

The clumsy politics is international and local. An emissions trading scheme, as proposed by the Australian Government, is very bad policy. It is a form of taxation on carbon under another name. To tax carbon will lead to thousands of pages of regulation – a godsend to bureaucracy, but paralysing for initiative and industry.

Read it here.

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