Vale Bob Carter

20 January, 2016 by

Climate sense

Climate sense

Professor Bob Carter, one of the first scientists to inspire me to research climate alarmism, has died aged 74.

From Heartland:

Dr. Carter was a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than 30 years professional experience. He earned degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and the University of Cambridge (England). He held tenured academic staff positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin) and James Cook University (Townsville), where he was Professor and Head of School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999.

Dr. Carter served as Chair of the Earth Sciences Discipline Panel of the Australian Research Council, Chair of the national Marine Science and Technologies Committee, Director of the Australian Office of the Ocean Drilling Program, and Co-Chief Scientist on ODP Leg 181(Southwest Pacific Gateways).

Dr. Carter was one of the world’s leading authorities on the science of climate change. He was the author of two books on the subject, Climate: The Counter Consensus (2010) and Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies about Climate Change (2013) and coauthor of several more, including three volumes in the Climate Change Reconsidered series produced by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and published by The Heartland Institute. Shortly before his death he coauthored Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming (2015).

You can read some of ACM’s posts on Bob going back to 2009 here.

Condolences to his wife, family and friends.

Filed Under: Climate

Climate Council: junk science leads to record levels of alarmism

7 February, 2015 by

Only the ABC cares about Flannery any more...

Only the ABC cares about Flannery any more…

The Climate Council is nothing more than an alarmism generating machine. Every year the level of hysteria increases faster than global temperatures, and breaks records with monotonous regularity.

With Tim Flannery and Will Steffen slowly stewing in their own warmist juices, there is no moderating element to reign in the madness, which gets more and more extreme every year.

And, despite being a privately funded organisation, the Climate Council has the ABC as its uncritical media department, providing – for free – all the publicity that it needs. And when I say ‘for free’, I mean paid for by our taxes. [Read more…]

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Coalition infighting will see return to bad old days of Labor – including a carbon price

6 February, 2015 by

Do we really want this guy as PM? Really??!!

Do we really want this guy as PM? I mean, really?

The Coalition seems to have a healthy self-destruct instinct which it must have inherited from the shambolic disaster that was Rudd-Gillard-Rudd.

But let’s look at the achievements of the Coalition government so far: it has removed the pointless and futile carbon tax, removed the mining tax (which raised no revenue) and has effectively stopped the thousands of illegal immigrants arriving by boat, many of whom were dying needlessly at sea thanks to Labor’s politically-correct multiculti-gone-mad open borders policy.

Tony Abbott and the government should be emphasising the dire state of our debt position, which is costing the economy billions in interest alone each year, and pointing out every single day that it is Labor, the authors of the mess, that are preventing the action necessary to start clearing it up.

But despite the worst Labor government in living memory, a Galaxy poll at the end of January showed 44% thought Bill Shorten would make the better prime minister, compared to 29% for Abbott, and the Coalition trailing Labor 43-57 on a two-party preferred basis.

Can Australian memories be that bad? Are we all suffering from mass dementia? How can people be seriously considering re-electing Labor barely 18 months after turfing them out at the federal election?

How can Coalition backbenchers seriously consider dumping the sitting prime minister, when during Labor’s administration they criticised Labor for the chaos and lack of stability caused by dumping Rudd?

Yes, Abbott has an image and communication problem, and seems incapable of sticking the knife into Labor about the damage it is wreaking on our economy. Yes, there is clearly a governance issue in the PM’s office, and the Chief of Staff is becoming the story, which is never a good look.

Yes, polls are looking bad right now, but that is partly due to the fact that people have become too comfortable with a culture of government hand-outs and benefits. Australia lived beyond its means for the six years of Labor incompetence, and naturally it is difficult when belts have to be tightened. But governments should not chase populism, they should put the interests of the country’s future first, even if that is initially unpopular with the electorate.

Otherwise, in late 2016, we will be plunged back into the nightmare of a Labor government, with hundreds of boats arriving every month, government spending and taxes going through the roof, borrowing escalating, and, most crucially from this blog’s point of view, the return of a pointless, ineffective tax on carbon dioxide, which as we all know, will cause huge damage to our economy, and make no difference whatsoever to the climate.

Filed Under: Aussie Politics, Climate Tagged With: , ,

Journalist feels the wrath of climate jihadists

2 February, 2015 by

‘In a few years, self-defence is going to be made a valid defence for patricide, so Rose’s children will have this article to present in their defence at the trial’ – comment on Guardian website

Climate jihadists on the rampage

Climate jihadists on the rampage

The fundamentalists of Islamic State will not permit any deviation from the path of pure faith, no matter how small. They will even attack their own if they believe they are not sufficiently devout. Unless you accept every single tenet of their religion, you are a heretic, and deserve punishment or death.

So it is with the climate jihadists, who require adherents of the global warming faith to subscribe to all facets of the alarmist dogma without question. Failure to do so will result in charges of heresy, followed by threats and ad hominem attacks.

[Read more…]

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Merry Christmas from ACM!

25 December, 2014 by

Wishing all my readers a very Merry Christmas, and hoping you will all continue the fight against alarmism and political correctness in 2015!

Filed Under: Climate

Ocean pH data omission and threats – just another day at Alarmism Central

24 December, 2014 by

Models vs real world (click to enlarge)

Models vs real world (click to enlarge)

Why do these quotes sound so drearily familiar?

“It is inappropriate for you to question the motives or quality of our science.”

“You will not last long in your career.”

“I hope you will refrain from contacting me again.”

Because they are the typical response of a climate scientist desperate to avoid sharing data [or avoid being caught out – Ed]. Sounds like the kind of tone you would get from Michael ‘Hockey Stick’ Mann, or our friend from CRU, Phil Jones, who once famously said:

“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

Anyway, it seems once again, with so much in the alarmism industry, that getting the right ‘message’ across is more important than letting the data speak for itself. So the latest ‘-gate’ emerges, catchily entitled NOAAgate.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Lima: weak, non-binding ‘agreement’ lays traps for Paris

15 December, 2014 by

Grey skies ahead in Paris…

Grey skies ahead in Paris…

As predicted in my post exposing the well-worn path taken by climate talks, we have reached steps 10, 11 and 12:

  • A hastily cobbled-together ‘agreement’ (which will have no binding effect, and which will kick any hard decisions further down the road) will be announced in order to save face;
  • The media and the Greens will publicly hail this sham agreement as a successful outcome, whilst secretly acknowledging that it is yet another embarrassing failure;
  • Everyone disappears back home (belching thousands more tonnes of CO2), and the whole thing is forgotten until the next ‘last chance’ comes around.

All to be expected. Whilst some sections of the moonbat media are celebrating the ‘last minute success’, even the Sydney Morning Herald acknowledges that there are difficult times ahead:

The main aim of the Lima conference – to agree to provide detailed information about commitments countries will make before the climate change conference in Paris in 2015 to enable others to scrutinise these pledges – was achieved. Further, a draft of elements of the Paris agreement was agreed to.

But major issues of dispute have been deferred until next year in Paris. The intractable issue of the division or differentiation between developing and developed countries and how much each should do is unresolved.

This binary division was central to the United Nations Framework Convention struck in 1992 but is no longer as relevant in 2014 ; countries now range along a spectrum of economic development.

Yet this binary division flows through to most aspects of the Lima agreement and so fundamental is this binary division to some developing countries’ view of world affairs that it cannot easily be excised.

Another problem is a competition between two rival models for what a new global climate agreement should look like. One is the old-style top-down legally binding agreement in which countries negotiate the international rules and the targets and other commitments each should meet.

The other is model in which countries determine their own commitments, targets and the scope of those pledges. Through the provision of detailed information about those pledges it is expected that there will be an incentive for countries to ensure that these voluntary contributions reflect a fair share of the international effort but also reflect differences between rich and poor countries. Whether this actually occurs remains to be seen but the existing model has not had much success.

At the end of the day, negotiators faced a problem in Lima – countries had their gaze set on the main prize in Paris but were unable or unwilling to agree on how to get there. This will only heighten the stakes and expectations for next year in France.

Until next year, then…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Lima talks teetering on brink of ignominious collapse

14 December, 2014 by

Congratulations, Australia!

Congratulations, Australia!

Cue the environmentalist alarm-mongers:

Frustrated climate campaigners have claimed that the world was on course for an unsustainable four-degree rise in temperatures, as two weeks of negotiations for a climate change agreement headed for an unsatisfying conclusion.

The proposals, still under discussion on Saturday, a day after the talks were scheduled to end, were too weak to keep global warming to the agreed limit of two degrees above preindustrial levels, setting the world on course to a climate disaster, according to developing countries at the summit.

“We are on a path to three or four degrees with this outcome,” said Tasneem Essop, international climate strategist for WWF [i.e. rent-seeking organisation with vested interest riding the climate bandwagon – Ed].

She said the final draft text, a five-page document put forward for approval on Saturday, offered little assurance of cutting emissions fast enough and deeply enough to curb warming. “We are really unhappy about the weakening of the text. This gives us no level of comfort that we will be able to close the emissions gap to get emissions to peak before 2020,” she said. Saleemul Huq, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development [ditto – Ed], put it even more succinctly: “It sucks. It is taking us backwards.” (source)

And there’s more good news:

This year’s Fossil of the Year Award, goes to Australia who take the Colossal Fossil award for collecting more Fossil awards than any other country here at COP20. From the get-go Australia signalled they were not coming here to make progress towards a comprehensive international climate agreement. This was pretty clear when they sent a climate sceptic Trade Minister Andrew Robb along to “chaperone” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop into a negotiating dead-end. The delegation in Lima has been dragging down loss & damage, flip-flopping on climate finance, and making bizarre comments that reveal a warped perspective on climate action. Shape up Australia, you are making Canada look good! (source)

Great sabotage from Bishop and Robb – respect!

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Quote of the Day from Lima

13 December, 2014 by

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

No surprise that the latest climate talks are heading exactly the same way as all the rest:

“The latest text which countries are working on has been stripped down to its bare bones to accommodate the whims of the lowest common denominator,” said Christian Aid’s Mohamed Adow. “Right now we are facing the prospect of being no further forward than we were when we left last year’s meeting in Warsaw.” (source)

Oh well, never mind. Everyone had a great time in an exotic location getting pissed… all at the taxpayers’ expense.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Aussie councils reject sea level hysteria

12 December, 2014 by

Fort Denison (© Andy Mitchell, Wikimedia)

Fort Denison (© Andy Mitchell, Wikimedia)

Fort Denison, an old penal colony in the middle of Sydney Harbour, has one of the oldest tide gauges around, having been located there for 128 years. During this period, the sea level has risen just 6.5 cm, or about two and a half inches.

Despite these trivial sea level rise over the past century and a bit, moonbat councils on the east coast of Australia are still tying up waterfront properties in miles of green tape, justified by predictions of massive sea level rises by climate alarmists, and property values have plummeted as a result:

In mid-2010, the Eurobodalla council, south of Shoalhaven, introduced a unique interim sea level rise policy that shackled more than a quarter of all properties in the shire to restrictive development controls. Predictably, there was an immediate shire-wide decline in property values.

…

In three years, individual Eurobodalla properties lost about $40,000 in value. With 22,000 properties in the shire, this represents a capital loss of $880m at a rate of $293m a year. This steady loss of rateable value means householders will face higher rate increases.

If similar policies were implemented along the entire east coast there would be annual property capital losses of billions of dollars.

So it is not surprising that NSW and Queensland governments are reconsidering their coastal management policies.

Queensland Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney recently notified Moreton Bay Regional Council of his intention to direct it to amend its draft planning scheme “to remove any assumption about a theoretical projected sea level rise due to climate change from all and any provisions of the scheme”. Seeney said his intention was to use a statewide coastal mapping scheme “that will remove the ‘one size fits all’ approach that incorporates a mandatory 0.8m addition to historical data”.

At last, a responsible government has recognised that global average sea-level change is no more relevant to coastal management than average global temperatures are to the design of residential heating and cooling systems — local weather and local sea-level change is what matters. (source)

A bit of Aussie climate sanity for once.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
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