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.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Labor's support in free-fall

12 July, 2011 by

Gillard on Q&A

And this is before the carbon tax was announced:

LABOR’S support has slumped to a record low, with the Coalition sitting at all-time highs as Tony Abbott extends his lead as preferred prime minister over Julia Gillard.

In the two-week lead-up to Sunday’s announcement of the carbon tax details, Labor’s primary vote fell three percentage points to a record low of 27 per cent, while the Coalition’s support rose three points to 49 per cent for its highest primary vote since the Howard government in October 2001.

Even with a steady Greens vote of 12 per cent favouring Labor on preferences, the Coalition recorded its highest two-party-preferred vote of 58 per cent and the ALP its lowest of 42 per cent based on preference flows at the August election last year. The Coalition’s two-party-preferred vote is the second biggest in Newspoll history, with the previous record of 63 per cent to 37 per cent set by Kevin Rudd’s Labor government during its honeymoon period in early 2008 over the Brendan Nelson-led Coalition.

All the gory details are here.

I forced myself to watch Gillard’s address to the nation, but I refuse to watch Q&A – an audience stacked with lefties, a left leaning panel and a lefty presenter (Tony Jones) makes it the media equivalent of a quick turn in the Colosseum for anyone even vaguely to the right of the far left. Here’s Andrew Bolt’s take on Gillard’s solo performance last night:

On Q&A last night, Julia Gillard:

  • dodged a question about her duty to seek an electoral mandate first before imposing this huge, risky and controversial tax.
  • dodged again a question on how her tax would affect the climate, and whether the effect was so small as to not be worth the effort.
  • again adopted her fatally patronising pitch, even suggesting we should be embarrassed at being beaten by those pesky New Zealanders who had (a very small) emissions trading scheme already. (“Just joking,” she trilled.)
  • got picked up even by warmist Tony Jones on her deceit at pretending China was cutting its emissions, when it is actually replacing small coal-fired power stations with huge ones, sending total emissions soaring.
  • was appealed to by a believer who captured the conceit of both of them by begging Gillard to use “simple” language so her “dear old mum” could be persuaded.
  • repeatedly used the deceit of calling carbon dioxide “pollution” without once being corrected by Jones.
  • twice dodges an invitation to debate Tony Abbott on the science of global warming.
  • again falsely claimed Margaret Thatcher backed what she was doing.

Gillard also claims there’s not enough respect for “the scientists”. Like this one?

Ah yes, but according to Gillard, there should only be respect for the scientists that agree with Labor’s policy. All the others are just filthy deniers funded by Big Oil. Surely you must have grasped this by now…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Green/Left can't handle balanced media

21 May, 2011 by

Brown and Sheikh

Apologies for the lack of posts – unexpectedly engaged in other things. But the two most ridiculous stories of the last day or so must be Bob Brown’s meltdown about the Murdoch “hate media“, and GetUp!’s protest about ABC’s “lurch to the right“.

This shows so many things it’s hard to know where to start. Firstly, of course, Bob Brown is so used to being treated with kid gloves that as soon as anyone asks anything like a curly question which he can’t answer, he flies off the handle and attacks his questioner, rather than actually addressing the issue. The Greens have for too long been regarded as above criticism, because their aims, supposedly “saving the planet”, are regarded as being on a higher moral plane than usual grubby politics. The reverse is actually true. The Greens are the grubby, people hating party, happy to sacrifice the well-being of the population on the altar of pointless environmentalism.

Brown has shown himself to be the shallow, inept politician we all knew he was. But now the Greens are in government and wielding power, they seem to expect the same easy ride. Well, sorry Bob, it doesn’t work like that. Your policies, ludicrous as they are, will be subjected to the same scrutiny as those of Labor and the Coalition. So my advice to you is: get the hell used to it. Because it will only get worse – far worse.

As for GetUp!, you really have to laugh, don’t you. This bunch of leftard lemmings is similarly so used to being pandered to by a lefty media, like ABC and Fairfax, that when Chris Uhlmann asks some difficult questions, it’s branded, Pavlov’s dog fashion, as a “lurch to the right”. Ding ding. No it isn’t Simon Sheikh, you halfwit. It’s a tiny, almost imperceptible step back towards something vaguely approaching the centre, which is exactly what is needed at the ABC.

Brown and Sheikh are like toddlers who have had their favourite toy (a compliant and biased media) cruelly taken away from them – and they just can’t cope.

Too funny for words.

Filed Under: ABC Bias, Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Avoid like the plague: ABC's "The Science Show"

15 May, 2011 by

The Anti-Science Show

Don’t go there. Really. You will not believe how Robyn Williams, John Cook and a couple of other hysterics lay into “deniers”. If you don’t sign up to the religion, you’re a fruitcake. Still attacking the Petition Project (that’s the best target they can come up with), if you had cancer, would you trust the quack, deniers questioning links between smoking and cancer, and you’re mentally deranged and suffering a delusion. And, the best bit of all, we’re LIARS! Yes, we’re LYING. It’s almost too funny for words.

I made it through about nine minutes before I shouted “F*** off” at my computer. See if you can do better.

Of course, there followed a detailed rebuttal by Bob Carter… ha, only joking! Not a chance. The ABC and Williams only want one side – the warmist side.

Their ABC – paid for by your taxes.

Link here (I did warn you).

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

ABC bias exposed… yet again

11 May, 2011 by

Bias in its genes

Bias is in its genes. It is part of what makes the ABC what it is. A shameless pro-left wing editorial stance is standard fare for national broadcasters it seems – just look at the truly awful BBC. We often report on the ABC’s blatant bias towards climate alarmism (see here for a selection), helped by a staff of science writers who are fully paid up warmists (think Robyn Williams and Bernie Hobbs to name but two).

Now Gavin Atkins takes their gruesome snake pit of lefty thinking, The Drum, to task in The Australian:

The ABC opinion website is not compelled by editorial policies to demonstrate any form of balance but merely to provide a “range of subjects from a diversity of perspectives”.

At The Drum, one conservative opinion is all it requires to legitimise a dozen from the Left.

Take, for example, the death of Osama bin Laden. Since his death, Drum readers have been provided with pretty much the same opinion every day from a total of nine writers: it was an extrajudiciary killing; the US was working outside the rule of law; celebrations of his death were disgraceful.

One of these writers, Greg Barns, went so far as to appear on The Drum’s television show to express doubt that bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.

Two contributors were eventually published wishing good riddance to bad rubbish, enough for the ABC to claim it has provided a diversity of perspectives, and publish another brace of tales from the hand-wringers.

But it is ridiculous to assert, as the ABC’s chief executive Mark Scott did following the launch of the ABC’s editorial policies in 2006, that this fulfils an expectation that “audiences must not be able to reasonably conclude that the ABC has taken an editorial stand on matters of contention and public debate”.

The real measure of bias at The Drum is not the range of opinion, it’s the frequency. Until the end of last month, 98 writers had been published eight or more times at The Drum, producing a total of 1880 articles. Only eight of these contributors (one in 12) would pass muster as being on the right of the political spectrum: Glenn Milne, David Barnett, Chris Berg, Kevin Donnelly, Tom Switzer, John Hewson, Niki Savva and Sinclair Davidson.

Of these, Milne is first and foremost a journalist rather than an opinion writer, Hewson rarely expresses any conservative viewpoint, and others are specialists in areas such as education or economics rather than political issues of the day.

This means, for example, that of all the writers who are given a regular platform on the ABC website, I could find only four articles that were in some way supportive of Israel and none in favour of the war in Afghanistan.

By comparison, there are dozens of anti-Israel and anti-Afghan war pieces on the taxpayer-funded website, most of them accusatory and damning. For example, there are at least nine anti-Israel articles by Antony Loewenstein alone, 12 anti-Afghanistan war rants by Kellie Tranter, and many more from Labor Party speechwriter Bob Ellis scattered among his 110 contributions. (source)

Also check out Gavin’s article on Asian Correspondent for more.

Utterly shameful for a taxpayer funded national broadcaster to be guilty of such blatant pro-Left bias. But one thing is certain, nothing will change in a hurry.

Filed Under: ABC Bias Tagged With: ,

UPDATED: Grassroots versus AstroTurf

9 April, 2011 by

GetUp? Grassroots? Like hell…

On the one hand we have GetUp!, the union-bankrolled (to the tune of $1.2m from just one donation) Labor cheer-machine, a motley collection of Lefty lemmings who simply do as they’re told, and turn up whenever Simon Sheikh sends them an email or a text message instructing them to go and plug some Labor/Union/Green cause or another.

On the other we have the real grassroots, ordinary Australians, many of whom are protesting for the first time in their lives against the pointless but hugely damaging environmental posturing of the Gillard carbon tax.

First the lemmings, the ABC’s favourite climate warriors (note the uncritical tone of admiration from our national broadcaster):

Hundreds of people have rallied in Brisbane’s CBD to show their support for the Federal Government’s plan to price carbon.

Over 1,000 people packed Brisbane’s King George square to support the Federal Government’s proposed carbon tax.

Signs calling for cuts to pollution and more spending on clean energy were littered through the crowd. [because they’d all been downloaded from the GetUp! web site – Ed]

Some people rallying say the Government is not doing enough to sell its plan to tackle climate change while others say they are glad it is trying. (source)

And then there are the real Australians, who as expected, get the ABC smear treatment. Note how the ABC manages to skew the report to make them all sound like a bunch of extremists who need to be kept under tight control (smears marked “*” for reference):

The anti-carbon lobby is continuing its pressure on the Federal Government with over 1,000 people attending a protest at Blacktown in Sydney’s west.

It has been a smaller than expected* turn out for the rally opposing, where once again there was a strong focus on the Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Some controversial signs from recent rallies at Hyde Park and Federal Parliament House made an appearance*, but the rally’s co-ordinator Chris Johnson says the tone today was still angry, but much cleaner than at previous events.*

“Today we’ve asked a few people to leave* and we’ve had no trouble,” he said.

The rally at Blacktown Showgrounds is the third major protest against a price on carbon in as many weeks. (source)

Ah, gotta love the ABC, where pro-Labor bias is in its genes.

UPDATE: The Sydney Morning Herald has a fawning, sycophantic piece about the wonderful GetUp! demonstration, all uncritically reported as would be expected for the pro-Labor/Green/Union Fairfax:

Organised by activist group GetUp!, the rally featured face painting and music for children – a deliberate move to show the positive message behind climate change action, national director Simon Sheikh said. [More like indoctrination – Ed]

GetUp! did not want ”to have a louder, angrier rally but to show the difference in both our numbers and message, the difference between fear and hope“, he said.

“We can answer their angry slogans and misinformation with a positive, family friendly gathering to stand up for our vision for clean energy and preserving a safe climate for our kids.”

He cited a recent anti-climate action rally in Melbourne at which participants claimed that Australians did not want action against climate change and said that “real grassroots community action” could make a difference.

“Let history record that when they tried to engineer a dangerous and angry Tea Party-like movement in Australia, ordinary families neutralised it with a larger and peaceful positive movement.” (source)

Pass the sick bag.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

BBC: "left-wing, shallow and oh-so politically correct"

3 April, 2011 by

Speaking out. Sissons (L) and Buerk (R)

This should come as a surprise to no-one. Like the ABC, the BBC is stuffed full of trendy urban lefties, pushing their own agendas, pro-Labour, pro-Obama, pro-Palestine etc, and which naturally include extreme environmentalism and a love of global warming alarmism. Only when they are too old to care do employees speak out.

We previously covered newsreader Peter Sissons’ memoirs here where he described the corporation as a “propaganda machine for climate change zealots”. Now another newsreader, Michael Buerk, has similarly let the cat out of the bag:

Michael Buerk has launched a withering assault on the BBC’s ‘creed of political correctness’.

The veteran presenter accuses staff at the Corporation of an inbuilt ‘institutional bias’ and warns that they read the left-wing Guardian newspaper as if it is ‘their Bible’.

Reviewing a memoir by his former colleague Peter Sissons, Buerk endorses his view that the BBC is warped by the prejudices of its staff.

He says fellow reporters have ‘contempt’ for business and the countryside – and that a left-wing culture means the national broadcaster has been cast ‘adrift of the overriding national sentiment’ on issues such as climate change.

…

Buerk, who has previously voiced criticisms of fellow newsreaders for being overpaid, autocue-reading ‘lame brains’, praises Sissons for attacking ‘Autocuties, “Elf ’n’ Safety” and ‘its culture of conformity’.

Buerk also accuses BBC reporters of an ‘uncritical love affair with environmentalism’. (source)

And for the BBC you could of course substitute our own ABC, which employs climate alarmists in its top science reporter positions (think Robyn Williams and Bernie Hobbs), and Left-leaning presenters in key political roles (think Tony “Has anyone seen me and Kevin Rudd in the same room” Jones, and Kerry O’Brien, “Red Kerry” as he was called, and not because of the colour of his hair…).

Not only that, but the editorial policy of ABC news is blatantly pro-warmist, with climate scare stories reported uncritically, and sceptical papers ignored or rubbished. Its Unleashed section is nothing more than a platform for extreme environmentalists like Clive Hamilton, with the ratio of alarmists to sceptics probably in excess of 20 to 1. I could go on…

A sad record for our supposedly impartial national broadcaster, which has gone the same way as the BBC.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

ABC delights in defaming sceptics

21 February, 2011 by

Genetically biased

Bias is in its genes. It’s not like it does it consciously, however, merely that evolution has determined that our national broadcaster hangs far to the Left, plugs climate alarmism, loves Tim Flannery and David Karoly, ensures that all its science presenters are fully paid-up warm-mongers, like Robyn Williams and Bernie Hobbs, and hates sceptics with a passion.

So it is little surprise that defamatory comments in an ABC blog concerning Hockey Stick destroyer Steve McIntyre of the incomparable Climate Audit blog remained unmoderated, requiring not just a formal complaint but an email from McIntyre himself before they were removed. As Marc Hendrickx explains:

In late November last year Sara Phillips, ABC’s environment editor, posted an opinion piece about climate negotiations at Cancun to her taxpayer-funded blog. I left a comment suggesting she might be better off covering a recent paper published in the Journal of Climate co-authored by Steve McIntyre. This work refuted an earlier study published in Nature in the summer of 2009 and widely covered by the ABC which claimed there was unusual warming in west Antarctica due to man-made global warming. McIntyre and co-authors O’Donnell, Lewis and Condon proved the statistical methodology of the Nature study was flawed and the results erroneous. I directed Phillips to a post on the subject by McIntyre, at his Climate Audit website.

The following anonymous comment was posted to Phillips’s blog shortly afterwards:

Annie : 03 Dec 2010 7:07:53pm

The denialist clowns return again . . . climateaudit.org . . . run by Stephen McIntyre a known climate denialist and extremist right-wing provocateur . . . you are a joke as are your answers . . . laughing hysterically.

On seeing the comment I alerted Phillips, suggesting the comment should be removed as it contravened ABC posting rules, namely, 4.4.1 defamatory, or otherwise unlawful or that it violates laws regarding harassment, discrimination, racial vilification, privacy or contempt; 4.4.2 intentionally false or misleading; 4.4.4 abusive, offensive or obscene; 4.4.5 inappropriate, off topic, repetitive or vexatious; 4.4.9 deliberate provocation of other community members.

After a day or so it was clear my request had been ignored, so I submitted a formal complaint to the ABC. This was turned down by the ABC’s audience and consumer affairs. The reply I received on December 16 included the following rationale from Phillips: The moderator has explained this decision as follows: “Mr McIntyre is described by Annie as being an ‘extremist right wing provocateur’. Mr McIntyre’s views are seen by some as extreme. Annie clearly believes they are. He could reasonably be described as ‘right wing’ as a speaking member of the George C Marshall Institute, which is known for its right-leaning politically conservative views. ‘Provocateur’ is a name given to describe those whose thinking goes against that of the status quo, another label that could reasonably be given to Mr McIntyre. As such, the comments from Annie are not unfounded and therefore not defamatory.”

Read the rest of the article to see the lengths required to have that disgraceful comment removed. Yet any comment that dared criticise the consensus that even slightly tiptoed over the posting rules would have been removed in a trice.

Also read Marc’s blog post on the subject: ABC Bias yields no apology for Mr McIntyre

Groupthink at work YET AGAIN at Their ABC, paid for by Your Taxes.

Filed Under: ABC Bias, Climate Tagged With: ,

ABC: climate models predict "more of whatever we've just had"

14 February, 2011 by

Climate astrology

There’s an old scientific saying: “The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.” This could equally be applied to climate models. There’s also an old weather forecasting technique: look at the weather today, and that’s a pretty good indication of what the weather will be tomorrow. It’s actually more accurate than most forecast models, in any case!

The ABC, fully into “Groupthink Mode”, finds a scientist who just happens to say that we’re going to have more of whatever we had last week (that’s because given enough scientists, they will eventually predict everything, so you can choose exactly what you like). So if we have a cyclone, they’ll find a scientist to say climate change will cause more cyclones. If we have a drought, they’ll find a scientist to say climate change will cause more drought. More rain, higher temperatures, lower temperatures, you name it, the ABC will drag up a scientist to say we’re going to have more of whatever we’ve just had. But instead of treating it like the joke it is, the ABC takes the whole thing with a reverential solemnity:

While Queenslanders deal with a summer of natural disasters, climate scientists are warning that Australia faces a future of more frequent extreme weather events.

The Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry is scrutinising the preparation and response to the 2011 floods, but planners are already looking ahead to minimise the loss of the past.

According to new modelling, Australia can expect 25 per cent more rain than was seen in the Queensland floods by the end of this century, as well as larger, more frequent storms.

“The modelling that’s been done by CLIM Systems in New Zealand has shown that in 2100 there could be a 25 per cent increase in rainfall,” sustainability consultant Stella Whittaker said.

“Now what that means is that the large storms which we currently describe as one-in-100-year storms, they are going to be more likely and it really means that people can see this type of event happening more than once in their lifetime.” (source)

Just like the old weather forecasters looking out of the window and writing tomorrow’s forecast, now climate modellers can look at whatever disaster we had last week and miraculously come up with a model to predict more of them due to “climate change”. They should have a look out of the window in Sydney today – maybe they could develop a model that predicts that climate change will cause more dull, overcast and drizzly weather – then I would feel like I was back home in London…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

ABC stews in fetid warmist juices

10 February, 2011 by

Groupthink rules

The bias of the ABC knows no bounds, especially when it comes to climate change. Maurice Newman’s complaint that the organisation displayed “groupthink” on such matters has gone totally unheeded, as is evidenced by a report on severe weather and the link to climate change on last night’s Lateline (link). I’m not even going to bother to review what was said – that, in the circumstances, is wholly unnecessary. All that needs to be considered is the list of contributors:

  1. Tony Jones Presenter of Lateline. Well, we all know Tony’s history on climate. This is the man who felt he had to caveat a broadcast of The Great Global Warming Swindle, and it’s common knowledge that he’s a fully paid-up warmist.
  2. Margot O’Neill O’Neill was the reporter on the piece in question, and we all know her history too. Back in late 2009, she wrote an alarmist blog on the ABC entitled Countdown to Copenhagen, which praised the efforts of the global community to “tackle climate change”, and smeared anyone who challenged the consensus (see here and here).
  3. Matthew England Well known warmist scientist –  see here, here, here and here.
  4. Andy Pitman Well known warmist scientist – see here for a classic Pitman piece.
  5. David Karoly Well known warmist scientist, in fact ACM’s “favourite” warmist scientist, completes the quintet – see here, here, here, here, etc, etc…

Five true climate change believers. Count them. FIVE. So where was the dissenting view for balance? Where was the scientist putting the valid points that nothing we have seen in the last few weeks is in any way unprecedented, and is simply a result of natural weather variation? Where was the scientist showing that flood records and cyclone records have shown no change in frequency or severity in the last 150 years (or if anything a slight decrease in frequency)? Where was the scientist explaining the link between La Niña and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, which resulted in the heavy rainfalls in Queensland? Where was anybody saying anything to question the orthodoxy presented here?

Answer: nowhere to be seen. Because the ABC is infected with the most virulent form of climate groupthink, just as Maurice Newman said. And they haven’t learnt a thing.

Their ABC, paid for by your taxes.

(h/t Graham)

Filed Under: ABC Bias, Climate Tagged With: , ,
«Previous Page
Next Page»