Skewering the clueless
As always, a great read!
Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup
22 January, 2010 by
Greens: "Ten out of ten for honesty!"
22 January, 2010 by
Green taxes
Barnaby Joyce gives the Greens full marks for calling their proposed price on carbon a “tax”:
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government was prepared to discuss the proposal with the Greens further, but the introduction of a $10bn-plus annual tax in an election year would appear to be a political impossibility.
Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce foreshadowed the opposition attack, greeting the proposal with a backhanded compliment. “The ETS is a massive new tax,” he said. “The Greens coming out and calling this a carbon tax, well I’ll give them 10 out of 10 for honesty.”
The government insists it will put the legislation for its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme before the parliament for a third time when politicians return to Canberra at the start of next month, but the opposition and the Senate crossbenchers, including the Greens, remain opposed to it.
Actually, political suicide is just what we want from Krudd & Co, so maybe they should go ahead!
Read it here.
US: Michael Mann received $500k economic stimulus funds
21 January, 2010 by
Given up counting tree rings - now counting dollars instead
<sarc> Gee, giving money to a discredited climate alarmist. That’s really going to help the US economy. </sarc> But that’s what happened, and the mainstream media resolutely ignored it (except for the ever-reliable WSJ):
According to the conservative think tank the National Center for Public Policy Research, Mann received $541,184 in economic stimulus funds last June to conduct climate change research.
With this in mind, NCPPR issued a press release Thursday asking for these funds to be returned:
In the face of rising unemployment and record-breaking deficits, policy experts at the National Center for Public Policy Research are criticizing the Obama Administration for awarding a half million dollar grant from the economic stimulus package to Penn State Professor Michael Mann, a key figure in the Climategate controversy.
“It’s outrageous that economic stimulus money is being used to support research conducted by Michael Mann at the very time he’s under investigation by Penn State and is one of the key figures in the international Climategate scandal. Penn State should immediately return these funds to the U.S. Treasury,” said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project.
Professor Mann is currently under investigation by Penn State University because of activities related to a closed circle of climate scientists who appear to have been engaged in agenda-driven science. Emails and documents mysteriously released from the previously-prestigious Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom revealed discussions of manipulation and destruction of research data, as well as efforts to interfere with the peer review process to stifle opposing views. The motivation underlying these efforts appears to be a coordinated strategy to support the belief that mankind’s activities are causing global warming. […]
The $541,184 grant is for three years and was initiated in June 2009.
And Mann’s university, Penn State was only last week granted a whopping $1.9 million in stimulus funds. As the NCPPR’s Deneen Borelli says:
It’s no wonder that Obama’s stimulus plan is failing to produce jobs. Taxpayer dollars aren’t being used in the ways most likely to spur job creation. The stimulus was not sold to the public as a way to reward a loyalist in the climate change debate. Nor was the stimulus sold as a way to promote the Obama Administration’s position on the global warming theory…As is often the case, political considerations corrupt the distribution of government funds.
Read it here. (h/t Tom S)
Copenhagen Accord: only 20 countries out of 192 sign up to declare AGW strategies
21 January, 2010 by
Waste of space
And with only 10 days to go until the deadline expires… But you can bet Australia will be one of them, being the school swot at the UN (something to do with Rudd’s job application for Secretary General in 2012):
The UN has dropped the 31 January deadline by which time all countries were expected to officially state their emission reduction targets or list the actions they planned to take to counter climate change.
Yvo de Boer, UN climate change chief, today changed the original date set at last month’s fractious Copenhagen climate summit, saying that it was now a “soft” deadline, which countries could sign up to when they chose [or maybe never – Ed]. “I do not expect everyone to meet the deadline. Countries are not being asked if they want to adhere… but to indicate if they want to be associated [with the Copenhagen accord].
“I see the accord as a living document that tracks actions that countries want to take,” he told journalists in Bonn.
“It’s a soft deadline. Countries are not being asked to sign the accord to take on legally binding targets, only to indicate their intention,” he said. [But they haven’t even done that! – Ed]
The deadline was intended to be the first test of the “Copenhagen accord”, the weak, three-page document that emerged at the end of the summit, and which fell far short of original expectations. It seeks to bind all countries to a goal of limiting warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial times and proposes that $100bn a year be provided for poor countries to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change after 2020.
But with just 10 days to go, only 20 countries out of 192 have signed up, with many clearly unready or unwilling to put their name to the document. Countries which have signed so far include India, Russia, Mexico, Australia, France and Norway.
You can just feel the enthusiasm!
Read it here. (h/t WUWT)
UN admits glacier data dodgy
21 January, 2010 by
Still there?
But then claims the rest of the report is robust – of course it is. How could we possibly doubt it, after Climategate and Glaciergate and Hockeystick-gate? The next “gates” in this saga will be floodgates, as independent scientists poring over the IPCC’s claims will find many similar instances of shoddy science used to advance a pre-conceived agenda. From the ABC:
The UN’s climate science panel has acknowledged that a grim prediction on the fate of Himalayan glaciers in a benchmark report on global warming had been “poorly substantiated” and was a lapse in standards.
Charges that the reference was highly inaccurate or overblown have stoked pressure on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), already assailed in a separate affair involving hacked email exchanges.
The new row focuses on a paragraph in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, a 938-page opus whose warning in 2007 that climate change was on the march spurred politicians around the world to vow action.
The paragraph notably declared that the probability of glaciers in the Himalayas “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high.”
The IPCC said in a statement that the paragraph “refers to poorly substantiated rates of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers.”
“In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly,” the panel admitted.
“The Chair, Vice Chair and Co Chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance.
“This episode demonstrates that the quality of the assessment depends on absolute adherence to the IPCC standards, including thorough review of ‘the quality and validity of each source before incorporating results from the source in an IPCC report’.”
And the most shocking aspect to all this is that it appears the IPCC were warned of the dodgy data before it was even published, but they ploughed on regardless. What does that say about the mindset of those writing the reports?
Read it here.
Greens may vote for ETS in Senate
21 January, 2010 by
Troeth and Boyce: you'd better not…
The Courier Mail is reporting that the Greens may soften their policy on the ETS to enable them to vote with the Government when it returns to the Senate in February:
Leader Bob Brown will be in Canberra this week will announce a new, softer environmental policy [kind of defeats the object of the Greens, really – Ed] – just 13 days before the Government’s twice-defeated Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is reintroduced into Parliament.
The Greens and the office for Climate Change Minister Penny Wong are expected to meet to discuss the offer in coming days.
The Courier-Mail understands Senator Brown and deputy leader Christine Milne will offer an interim proposal to get an emissions trading scheme off the ground, under a deal designed to catapult the Greens back into the political debate.
It is believed the Greens’ proposal will closely follow the Government’s legislation but would allow for stronger greenhouse gas targets as circumstances change.
The Greens argue the Government’s scheme is problematic because the legislation makes it too hard to toughen targets once it is operational.
Meanwhile, The Courier-Mail can reveal that outgoing Victorian Liberal senator Judith Troeth and Queensland Liberal senator Sue Boyce, who both crossed the floor to vote for the scheme last year, have not ruled out again siding with Labor.
…
The Government would need the five Greens plus two others to pass the legislation in the Senate.
If Troeth and Boyce cross the floor, enabling the ETS to pass with the Greens support, they should be expelled from the Liberal party immediately (and then banished to the dingiest, darkest corner of the planet).
Read it here.
US: Shock Democrat loss in Massachusetts
20 January, 2010 by
Ex-Worst President
The party’s over for Obama. And how. Maybe it’s something to do with all spin and no substance (a bit like Kevin Rudd really), and promising to pay billions of US taxpayers money to third world countries to advance the cause of global socialism, er, “tackle climate change”:
At 9.20pm today, in Massachusetts, or 1.20pm on the Australian east coast, the era of Obamamania abruptly ended. The euphoria surrounding the elevation of Barack Obama to the American presidency was brought to a crashing end.
It didn’t even last a year.
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States.
On the eve of that anniversary, the people of Massachusetts, the bluest of blue Democratic states, delivered a thunderous rejection of the Democratic Party and, by implication, the President.
In a special election to fill the seat vacated by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, the people of Massachusetts did something they had not done for more than 40 years: they elected a Republican to represent them in the Senate.
This was unimaginable one year ago, as Washington was gripped by euphoria over the charismatic Obama.
Shockingly, today’s election wasn’t even close.
With 2 million votes counted, a previously obscure Republican state Senator, Scott Brown, 50, defeated the Massachusetts Attorney-General, Martha Coakley, 56.
The margin was 52 per cent to 47 per cent, a resounding turnaround, given Massachusetts’ voting record.
The result is a political earthquake.
It sure is. And as I read on one of the blogs, Jimmy Carter is now celebrating that he is no longer the “worst ever US president in history.”
Read it here.
Abbott's stinging attack on Rudd
20 January, 2010 by
Stinging attack
Not climate specifically, but a good story none the less. This is what we need the Opposition leader to do. Expose the hypocrisy and spin of the Labor government, and in particular Kevin Rudd:
KEVIN Rudd is a “ruthless” politician who went to the polls in 2007 promising anything and everything in order to be elected, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said yesterday.
Mr Abbott said the Prime Minister’s failure to fulfill a raft of election promises was starting to show, contributing to his decline in popularity.
“I think Kevin Rudd is an extremely ruthless politician and I think pre-election he said whatever he thought he needed to say to maximise his chances of winning,” he said. “I think he thought he would worry about the consequences of his promises later.”
Mr Abbott launched the broadside against Mr Rudd after the Prime Minister delivered an Australia Day address in Melbourne on Monday night.
“It was typical Rudd,” Mr Abbott said. “It was full of things that we have to do in 2050, and almost nothing about what he would do this year.”
Great stuff, Tony. Keep it up.
Read it here.
Heated moments mar Monckton
20 January, 2010 by
Viscount Monckton
Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian wisely counsels Lord Monckton against falling into the same trap as the alarmists:
When Monckton talks about the science he is powerful. Watch on YouTube his kerb-side interview of a well-meaning Greenpeace follower on the streets of Copenhagen last month. With detailed data behind him, he asks whether she is aware that there has been no statistically significant change in temperatures for 15 years. No, she is not. Whether she is aware that there has in fact been global cooling in the past nine years? No, she is not. Whether she is aware that there has been virtually no change to the amount of sea ice? No, she does not. Whether, given her lack of knowledge about these facts, she is driven by faith, not facts. Yes, she is driven by faith, she says.
To those with an open mind, Monckton’s fact-based questions demand answers from our political leaders. To this end, he will impress his Australian audience over the next few days. Unfortunately, while Monckton has mastered the best arts of persuasion, he also succumbs to the worst of them when he engages in his made-for-the-stage histrionics. In Copenhagen, when a group of young activists interrupted a meeting, he berated them as Nazis and Hitler Youth. Elsewhere he has called on people to rise up and fight off a “bureaucratic communistic world government monster”. This extremist language damages his credibility. More important, it damages the debate. You start to look like a crank when you describe your opponents as Nazis and communists. You can see how it happens. Talking to a roomful of cheering fellow travellers, the temptation is to hit the high gear of hyperbole. But if your aim is to persuade those with an open mind, this kind of talk will only turn people away. Warning people about the genuine threat to national sovereignty from a centralised global-warming bureaucracy is one thing. Talking about a new front of communists marching your way is another. It sounds like an overzealous warrior fighting an old battle.
Read it here.
Summer snow in Australia
19 January, 2010 by
Taking a trip Down Under?
Unfortunately, it takes the Canadian press to report this story, since it doesn’t fit the alarmist agenda pursued by most of the Aussie media (record heat = global warming, record cold = just “weather”). Once again, from the Weather Isn’t Climate Department:
Australia is following its second-hottest year on record with extraordinary snow flurries in its southeastern alpine region, where some towns have recorded their first-ever summer snowfalls.
Australia’s temperatures during the summer months of December through February can be uncomfortably hot even on its highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, which stands a modest 7,310 feet (2,228 metres) above sea level.
Snow fell to 3,000 feet (900 metres) above sea level Monday in parts of New South Wales and Victoria states, Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jane Golding said.
“Any time of year, it’s unusual to have snow down that far,” she said.
Golding said a cold front had brought frigid air from the Antarctic Ocean to southeast Australia. Normal summer temperatures are expected to return to the region on Wednesday.
The town of Bombala in New South Wales, east of Kosciuszko, recorded its first summer snow since the bureau began keeping records there in 1965, Golding said.
The town of Cooma, also in New South Wales but north of Kosciuszko, recorded its first summer snow since records were first kept in 1973.
Cooma resident Krystal Pernitsch said the wind chill factor made Monday’s high temperature of 59 degrees (15 degrees Celsius) feel like 48 degrees (9 Celsius).
“It’s a bit of a shock to the system after last week,” when the mercury reached 99 degrees (37 Celsius), she said.
Read it here.
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