Britain to be hit by “entirely typical weather”

22 November, 2013 by

Extremely average

Extremely average

The Daily Mash:

TEMPERATURES in the UK are going to fall sharply over the coming weeks because that is what happens at this time of year, it has been claimed.

Meteorologists believe that winter, a spell of short, cold days commonly defined as a season, will be more or less exactly what you would expect.

Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute for Studies said: “Household fuel costs will rise considerably as families try to increase the temperature of their homes.

“People on the verge of death may die.

“Ice and snow will create icy, snowy conditions.

“Your car will refuse to start.

“Because it’s winter.”

Speaking of extreme weather, how long will it take for the headbangers at Skeptical Science to label Richard Muller a filthy denier for this:

It is wise to be cautious about the panic that sets in when a storm kills a large number of people. People search for reasons to believe the storms are worse than in the past, even if the numbers contradict them. Victims naturally wish to explain why loved ones died and they look for a villain — and they can find one in global warming.

But global warming does not obviously lead to increased or more violent tornadoes. It is possible, for instance, that the increased energy brought by the higher temperatures of global warming is less significant than global warming’s reduction in the north-south temperature difference (the poles warm more than the Equator). The latter could reduce the kind of hot-cold weather fronts that generate severe storms. The current climate models are simply unable to make a clear prediction, and reduced tornadoes from global warming are just as plausible as increased ones.

One thing is clear, however: The number of severe tornadoes has gone down. That is not a scientific hypothesis, but a scientific conclusion based on observation. Regardless of the limitations of climate theory, we can take some comfort in that fact. (source)

Throw another heretic on the barbecue.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Election 2013: Rudd promises to put Aussie on Moon

27 August, 2013 by

Bushwacker Bruce

Bushwacker Bruce said “Geez, I’m on the f*cking moon”

[Satire alert] Kevin Rudd has pledged that if re-elected on 7 September, he will commit Australia to land a fair dinkum Aussie on the Moon.

Speaking at a campaign function, where he had just announced a bunch of random, back-of-the-envelope, thought-bubble, far-fetched and completely un-costed policies so far into the future that nobody will remember, Rudd said that he asked the electorate to return a Labor government so that it could put Australia at the forefront of the space race.

“Australia has a proud history of space exploration [no it doesn’t – Ed] and I cannot think up a more brazenly populist and vote-grabbing policy than promising to put an Aussie on the Moon at some point far in the future, when both I, and this ridiculous promise, will have been long forgotten. The East Coast rail link was pretty much out there, with a budget of $115 billion and a completion date at least fifty years away, but the ABC and Fairfax really thought I was serious. So let’s see how many of them fall for this one, with a budget of $1 trillion and a target date of 2100.”

Mr Rudd said he had considered offering free time travel for all senior citizens, but thought that even the ABC wouldn’t be dumb enough to run that story [want a bet?].

[Enough – Ed.]

Filed Under: Aussie Politics Tagged With: , ,

Going nowhere…

11 June, 2013 by

Dead right.gillard_dog_0

Filed Under: Aussie Politics Tagged With: ,

Lewandowsky and Cook lose the plot

6 February, 2013 by

It's Lew, no it's Cook, no Lew, Cook, Lew, er, hang on...

It’s Lew, no it’s Cook, no Lew, Cook, Lew, er, hang on…

[UPDATE 3 [8 Feb, 07.30 AEST]: Jo Nova has more on Mr Hubble Marriott here.

[UPDATE 2 [7 Feb, 18.40 AEST]: This is all in the public domain now, so I am sharing it here. The fourth author on this paper, Michael Hubble-Marriott, is the “Mike” who is responsible for the Watching the Deniers site (sorry, what are we denying again? Duh). Mike couldn’t contain his glee at being asked to be part of the team, so he revealed it all on his blog. I guess you judge people by the company they keep…]

[UPDATE: John Cook responds in the comments below.]

It’s typical isn’t it? You take a break and then, well, stuff happens. But this particular ‘stuff’ is too good to pass up.

The University of Western Australia’s very own Nutty Professor, Stephan Lewandowsky, goes full-on stupid, with best buddy John Cook of Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science, by publishing another risible paper on the ludicrous “moon landing denier theory” previously discussed widely here and on the net (see here and here and here and here and plenty more).

But wait… This time, instead of labelling anyone daring to question any part of the climate consensus as a crazy conspiracy theorist, it’s anyone who questions Lewandowsky’s moon landing denier paper, who’s, er… a crazy conspiracy theorist.

It’s snappily entitled Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation, but what it actually represents isn’t recursive fury, but recursive idiocy: rational, if sometimes irritated, responses to an idiotic paper confected into yet another, this time doubly idiotic, paper. It’s bullshit squared, in other words.

So I assume that this post on ACM will be used as evidence to show that because I dare question this paper, I am (yet again) a crazy conspiracy theorist – and Lew will write a paper about that in due course. Will it ever end? [No – Ed]

Here’s part of the abstract:

This article analyzes the response of the climate blogosphere to the publication of LOG12 [shorthand for the ‘moon landing denier paper’]. We identify and trace the hypotheses that emerged in response to LOG12 and that questioned the validity of the paper’s conclusions. Using established criteria to identify conspiracist ideation, we show that many of the hypotheses exhibited conspiratorial content and counterfactual thinking. For example, whereas hypotheses were initially narrowly focused on LOG12, some ultimately grew in scope to include actors beyond the authors of LOG12, such as university executives, a media organization, and the Australian government. The overall pattern of the blogosphere’s response to LOG12 illustrates the possible role of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science, although alternative scholarly interpretations may be advanced in the future.

No acknowledgement of the multitude of obvious failures in the original paper’s methodology, just more of the same ideology, plugged as science.

The full text is here (PDF). I’m proud to say that this humble blog gets three mentions – I will wear those mentions as a badge of honour.

I can’t be arsed (or assed for our American readers) to bother even reading it let alone wasting my time responding (I used the search function in my PDF app to find out where ACM was mentioned, by the way), it’s so laughable. I’ll leave it to the incomparable Ben Pile at Climate Resistance to eviscerate this latest steaming heap of ‘research’:

I have little interest in parsing the 57 pages of the new paper [yep, with you there, bro], to get the measure of the remainder of what Lewandowsky believes are conspiracy theories. It seems sufficient to say that, whether or not the comments in question do betray a tendency of the authors towards conspiracy theorising, they were a response to a poorly-conceived research exercise which was transparently intended to frame the debate as one between science on the one hand, and idology/conspiracy theorists on the other. If the internet has a gutter, in which thrive conspiracy theories and pointless interminable flame wars between people who have little grasp on the real world, Lewandowsky’s work is amongst it.

But what is remarkable, however, is that seemingly academic research should have fallen to this level. Lewandowsky reduces academia to a silly blog comment war. He drags journals, and research organisations into this war, undermining the value of research in general and trust in it. The thrust of Lewandowsky’s paper is ‘I picked a fight on the Internet, and this is what people said about me’, which, of course, omits any criticism of his work that may enable him to develop a better argument.

And that’s the point. Lewandowsky’s research is intended to reduce the phenomenon of ‘scepticism’ and ‘denial’ without taking any notice of what sceptics say, except when it confirms to the stereotype Lewandowsky wants to demonstrate the existence of. No doubt that’s a ‘conspiracy theory’ on his view, but the truth is much simpler: either his mediocre talents aren’t sufficient for the critical self-reflection necessary to produce robust research, or an inflated ego precludes critical self-reflection.

…

Ultimately, ‘research’ of this kind will bring the academy down with it, because drawing attention to, and publishing Lewandowsky’s work means demonstrating to the world the fact that quite often, academic researchers are as petty-minded, ‘idologically-motivated’, and pig ignorant as the worst of online commentary.

Are you hearing this, UWA?

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Penn and Teller tear 'global warming' a new one

20 January, 2013 by

I am a huge Penn and Teller fan. Apart from being some of the best illusionists on the planet, they also have a no-nonsense approach which is refreshingly un-PC.

I saw this video a while ago, but Catallaxy Files have just reposted it, and that was my cue to share it with ACM’s readers. Please be advised that the video contains very bad language – including f*ck, repeatedly. In fact, the third word spoken is f*ck.

That said, enjoy!

[tube]4v4Q9Wv10Ho[/tube]

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Lew Paper?

9 September, 2012 by

Josh on Lewandowsky and the moon landing denier paper:

Cartoons by Josh

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

CSIRO silliness

16 August, 2012 by

A few idle minutes with a marker pen and Photoshop, inspired by yet another CSIRO scare story today:

I think I’m becoming vegetarian…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

French earthworms discovered on vacation in Ireland

26 July, 2012 by

Lovely day for a Guinness…

Yes, it’s time for the climate change (non-) story of the week. Worms are on the move, apparently. Fed up with their life in France (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t be?), worms are moving to Dublin. And it’s all due to “climate change”, or perhaps, the urban heat island effect? Or maybe they just prefer Guinness to Grenache:

Scientists have discovered a thriving population of Mediterranean earthworms in an urban farm in Dublin, Ireland.

The findings by University College Dublin scientists published in the journal Biology Letters suggest that rising soil temperatures due to climate change may be extending the geographical habitat range of the earthworm Prosellodrilus amplisetosus.

“Soil decomposer species including earthworms are frequently introduced into non-native soils by human activities like the transportation of nursery plants or live fish bait,” says Dr Olaf Schmidt from the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, and the Earth Institute, University College Dublin, one of the authors of the report.

“There have been a few recordings of the earthworm P. amplisetosus outside of its native range in the Aquitaine region of south-western France, but now we have discovered a successfully thriving population in Ireland, about 1,000 km north of its native habitat.”

Urban farms have higher temperatures than rural farms so the scientists suggest that this may have helped P. amplisetosusto becomeestablished in this new location. The mean yearly air temperature in Aquitaine in south-western France is about 3 degrees higher than in Dublin, Ireland.

The finding brings to 27 the total number of known earthworm species living in Irish soils. (source)

The last piece of information very handy for that old favourite of the trivia night, “How many species of earthworm live in Irish soils?” Now you’ll never be stuck for an answer.

Top o’ the mornin’ to yer…!

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Sunday Silliness: 'Euthanise your old pet' to save the planet

10 June, 2012 by

Ms Tremayne

People send me links to stuff. This one came in a few days ago, and with it came a message to STOP HAVING BABIES (in capitals). The link points to a highly credible-looking site purportedly selling carbon credits, but it’s clearly an elaborate hoax as the carbon credits are apparently on “backorder” – LOL!

The purpose of the site, I eventually established, is to advertise a (genuine) book, “Biodiesel – A Novel”, which is available on Amazon, and judging by the comments may actually be a good read. An extract is available here.

The worrying thing about this whole yarn was the length of time it took me to work out it was a hoax. We have read stuff like this from genuine extreme-green advocates, so I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was genuine or not.

Here are a few extracts from an article by “Daphne Tremayne” entitled The little things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint (and think to yourselves how many times you may have read similar exhortations from the environmental headbangers):

Like me, you’ve probably realized that everyday living is a catastrophe for the environment!  In many ways, our modern lifestyle has done so much to contribute to ecological degradation and Global Warming.  But have you ever really considered what you can do to change things?  Here are just a few little things you can do to reduce your Carbon Footprint!

  • Stop Having Children

      I know!  I know!  Children are as cute as all get-out, but have you ever really considered how much carbon one child puts into the atmosphere?  Over a single lifetime, the amount is practically immeasurable.  One of the best all-around things for the environment would be fewer people in the world…

  • If You Must Have Children, Buy Baby Credits

     Baby Credits are similar to regular Carbon Credits, however, instead of being backed by non-productive parcels of land, Baby Credits are backed by non-productive women of child-bearing age…

  • Slow Down Your Breathing

      It sounds silly, but breathing is actually a major source of atmospheric carbon.  One of the ways you can reduce your Carbon Footprint is to breathe less.  That’s right, breathe less!  You’re probably asking yourself how that’s possible, but believe it or not, yoga is a great way to slow down the metabolism and reduce the need for excessive breathing.  If you’re not already into yoga, consider taking classes at your local studio.  Soon, you’ll be breathing less, and as an added bonus, feel much less stressed out!

  • Reduce Your Use of Paper Products

     Consider switching to a reusable toilet sponge.  Store your toilet sponge in a mild vinegar and water solution in a receptacle next to the commode and use it the same way you would toilet paper.   Instead of discarding your sponge, rinse it after each use before placing it back in the vinegar and water solution…

  • Euthanize Your Old Pet

     Pets have become a common feature in most homes and are an attribute of the modern, Western lifestyle.  We all love our dogs and cats, but really, when you think about it, pets are a major producer of excess carbon.  One of the best ways to reasonably enjoy your pet and reduce your overall Carbon Footprint is to determine in advance how long your pet should live.  As a family, set a date when your pet will be euthanized.  One great way to teach children the value of pet euthanasia is to turn the occasion into a family celebration.  Let’s say you’ve set March 10, five years from now, as your pet’s euthanasia date.   For the next five years, celebrate March 10 as your pet’s special day, with a family party and perhaps a visit to your pet’s future burial spot.  Teach your children to think of the occasion as a birthday in reverse.  A predetermined euthanasia date will encourage your family to love and care for your furry friend while it’s still young and playful.  What’s more, pre-planing for pet termination not only works towards reducing your family’s Carbon Footprint, but guarantees long term reduction in veterinary expenses. 

There’s plenty more at the link.

 

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

ANU scientists just can't help making fools of themselves

15 May, 2012 by

Bad hair day?

UPDATE: Jo Nova posts a timely reminder of her online debate with Glikson here.

Apart from the ubiquitous Will Steffen, the other “big name” at the ANU Climate Change Institute is (warmist, naturally) Andrew Glikson (see here for previous form).

Glikson, who is clearly annoyed that Steffen gets all the limelight, has decided to make a complete and utter twit of himself by writing a huffy letter to Richard Bean, the writer of the climate change play currently showing in Melbourne, The Heretic, in terms that can only be regarded by any normally balanced individual as deeply comic (my emphasis):

Dear Mr Richard Bean

As an Earth and paleo-climate scientist of some 45 years-long experience and more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, I suggest the show “The Heretic”, which I have not seen but about which I have read, can only lead to trivialization and further denial of what the scientific world regards as the greatest threat humanity and nature are facing.

I suggest the show plays into the hands of those who support the use of the thin terrestrial atmosphere (breathable thickness of less than 10 km) for further carbon emission on top of the 350 billion tons of carbon already emitted since the 18th century and >150 billion tons carbon released by land clearing, fires etc.. As shown in my enclosed paper, the pace of CO2 rise over the last 40 years, recently reaching >2 ppm CO2/year, has now exceeded any recorded for the last 65 million years, while the atmospheric level of 394 ppm CO2 is now near that of the warm Pliocene era some 3 million years-ago. Our empirical evidence is based on direct observations of the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere system by the world’s climate monitoring bodies – including NOAA, NASA, NSIDC, Hadley-MET, Tyndale, Potsdam, CSIRO, BOM and other.

Opinion and “belief” are no substitute for evidence. Those who doubt the basic laws of nature and empirical data are always welcome to submit research to peer review journals where their papers will be treated the same as any other. In so far as their propositions are upheld, anyone who is able to demonstrate as if:

  1. The Earth’s climate is not warming, or
  2. The anthropogenic release of >500 billion tons of carbon since the 18th century is not the primary factor responsible for global warming

is bound to receive the highest accolades.

I wonder whether such a show, if concerned with denial of the holocaust of world war II, would have been conceived?

I suggest that, given the threat of anthropogenic global warming to the terrestrial climate and to marine ecosystems, a theatric show making mockery of the gravity of the climate issue for future generations can only be seriously mistaken.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Glikson
Earth and paleo-climate scientist
Australian National University

They really have no idea, do they? How utterly embarrassing for Glikson, ANU and Australia.

Thanks to Bishop Hill.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
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