Government should 'grow up' on Climate Change, Scientist says
12/05/13 20:37 Filed in: Forced Guest Post
A dozen prominent scientists write letter to (Canadian) Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver
A group of 12 prominent Canadian climate scientists called out the federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver on his support for the expansion of oil infrastructure in a letter released today.
The scientists wrote that building pipelines and developing fossil fuel production delays the transition to an economy that relies less on oil and gas.
The scientists urged Oliver to move away from the high-carbon approach that will lead to climate warming of more than 2 C.
"If we invest in expanding fossil fuel production, we risk locking ourselves into a high-carbon pathway that increases greenhouse gas emissions for years and decades to come," wrote the group that includes Mark Jaccard of B.C.'s Simon Fraser University, Gordon McBean of the Centre for Environment and Sustainability at Western University in London, Ont., and David Keith, a Canadian who is teaching public policy and engineering at Harvard University.
The group went on to say that if Canada wants to avoid dangerous climate change it "will require significantly reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and making a transition to cleaner energy."
"I'm not arguing necessarily for totally closing down the tarsands. I just think they ought to be more responsibly developed and in a way that is compatible with properly addressing climate change," said John Stone, one of the signatories and a geography and environment professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Stone said the country needs to have a proper discussion about energy policy and the way forward.
Need for balance
Keith was blunt in his assessment of the Canadian government's stand on climate change and resource development. He wants the government to "grow up" and represent the two important but very different needs of the country.
"They need to balance the long-term environmental risks and the benefits to Canadians ... not using the atmosphere as a waste dump for carbon. And they need to balance that against desire in current laws, for companies to export oil," Keith told CBC News.
"Those are two different goals. They are somewhat contradictory but an adult government needs do to that in a serious way. And I don't hear it."
Oliver is travelling through Europe this week as part of a campaign to promote the country's resources and to convince the European Union not to discriminate against Canadian oil by labelling it dirtier than other fuel.
Chris McCluskey, a spokesman for Oliver, said it's unrealistic to think the world can move off oil.
"Cutting off oil production would create great economic hardship, especially for the poorest nations who already suffer from an energy deficit," McCluskey said. "Indeed, one and half billion people are now without electricity. We have an obligation to responsibly develop our resources, protect the environment, create economic growth for Canadians and share our energy with the world."
Letter to Joe Oliver
A group of 12 prominent Canadian climate scientists called out the federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver on his support for the expansion of oil infrastructure in a letter released today.
The scientists wrote that building pipelines and developing fossil fuel production delays the transition to an economy that relies less on oil and gas.
The scientists urged Oliver to move away from the high-carbon approach that will lead to climate warming of more than 2 C.
"If we invest in expanding fossil fuel production, we risk locking ourselves into a high-carbon pathway that increases greenhouse gas emissions for years and decades to come," wrote the group that includes Mark Jaccard of B.C.'s Simon Fraser University, Gordon McBean of the Centre for Environment and Sustainability at Western University in London, Ont., and David Keith, a Canadian who is teaching public policy and engineering at Harvard University.
The group went on to say that if Canada wants to avoid dangerous climate change it "will require significantly reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and making a transition to cleaner energy."
"I'm not arguing necessarily for totally closing down the tarsands. I just think they ought to be more responsibly developed and in a way that is compatible with properly addressing climate change," said John Stone, one of the signatories and a geography and environment professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Stone said the country needs to have a proper discussion about energy policy and the way forward.
Need for balance
Keith was blunt in his assessment of the Canadian government's stand on climate change and resource development. He wants the government to "grow up" and represent the two important but very different needs of the country.
"They need to balance the long-term environmental risks and the benefits to Canadians ... not using the atmosphere as a waste dump for carbon. And they need to balance that against desire in current laws, for companies to export oil," Keith told CBC News.
"Those are two different goals. They are somewhat contradictory but an adult government needs do to that in a serious way. And I don't hear it."
Oliver is travelling through Europe this week as part of a campaign to promote the country's resources and to convince the European Union not to discriminate against Canadian oil by labelling it dirtier than other fuel.
Chris McCluskey, a spokesman for Oliver, said it's unrealistic to think the world can move off oil.
"Cutting off oil production would create great economic hardship, especially for the poorest nations who already suffer from an energy deficit," McCluskey said. "Indeed, one and half billion people are now without electricity. We have an obligation to responsibly develop our resources, protect the environment, create economic growth for Canadians and share our energy with the world."
Letter to Joe Oliver
Comments
The Morality of Markets
07/05/13 21:12 Filed in: Forced Guest Post
ROD Kemp, John Roskam, Tony Abbott, friends of the Institute of Public Affairs, and fellow champions of the free market: Let's be clear about our purpose this evening. We are not here to mark an anniversary that just commemorates the past. We are here to champion a vision that speaks to the future. That vision remains as vital today as when the IPA was founded back in 1943.
The Australians who came together that decisive year were concerned about the drift to socialism they thought might prove a legacy of the war. My father, I am proud to say, was among these men. They set up the IPA to help write a different future for this country. What they wanted was simple: an Australia where men and women would rise in society not because they were born into privilege - but because they earned it with their hard work, their thrift, and their enterprise.
[Or as Friends of G and T put it in Excise Australia Fair
Our forebears formed the IPA
To rail against the laws
That slow the rate that riches flow
Into our gaping maws.
As Mr Murdoch noted, his father was one of those founding forebears]
As you have pursued this vision over the years, you have had many victories. In your early years, you helped defeat the postwar bid to nationalise Australian banks - often fighting the banks as much as the government! You were an early advocate of the great reforms - pushed by Labor and Liberal governments alike - to open up Australia by deregulating, privatising, reducing tariffs and floating the dollar. And today you are leading the fight for freedom of speech in Australia.
So on this 70th anniversary I say to you: Your victories have truly been victories for the Australian people. And it is the great hope of everyone in this room that you will continue the vital work that will make Australia a freer ... more competitive ... more hopeful ... and more successful society. Success is not something we can take for granted. Success must be fought for. Success most be won.
But, instead of hearing about new initiatives that would make Australia more competitive and open up new opportunities for the Australian people, we hear more of the class warfare rhetoric that has proved so toxic and so damaging for older nations. And, here is something else we are not hearing about: we must argue the morality of free markets and the immorality of markets that are not free. The cold, commercial word "market" disguises its human character - a market is a collection of our aspirations, exertions, choices and desires. I saw that up close last week in China, where the digital marketplace has become a launch pad for individual opportunities unimaginable to the Chinese of 20 years ago. Typically, those of us who believe in free markets make our arguments by extolling the market’s economic superiority. But I believe we need to do something very different from what we are used to. We need to defend the market on precisely the grounds that its critics attack it: on justice and fairness. Yes, the morality of free markets. Read More...
Who's Afraid Of Christopher Monckton?
14/04/13 12:39 Filed in: Forced Guest Post
The formal complaint was met with hilarity by the accused academics yesterday, none of whom appeared concerned about disciplinary action.
In a letter to Victoria University vice-chancellor Pat Walsh, the British aristocrat claimed the professors had been dishonest and brought the university into disrepute.
He claimed professors James Renwick and David Frame, both accomplished climate scientists, had insulted him in the media by calling his views harmful with no scientific basis.
"In saying I have ‘no training' he [Professor Renwick] has lied. I have a Cambridge degree in classical architecture."
Professor Jonathan Boston, who specialises in public policy, was upbraided for refusing to host Lord Monckton at the university.
Lord Monckton demanded apologies from all three men and the removal of a graph detailing the link between carbon emissions and climate change from the university's website.
Yesterday, none of the professors were contemplating an apology.
Associate Professor Renwick said the letter was nothing new and Lord Monckton regularly attacked his critics to garner publicity for his views.
"I understand he has threatened to contact the British authorities and have degrees from Victoria University deregistered. It is an empty threat. He threatens people all over the place."
While it was easy to dismiss Lord Monckton's views, it was more difficult to dismiss the damage they caused, he said.
"I'd say it was amusing, but there is nothing amusing about his comments."
Professor Frame said Lord Monckton was trying to bait scientists into a debate on climate change.
"But I am not under no obligation to debate with Lord Monckton because he has no credibility and no expertise in this field."
Professor Boston confirmed he had been contacted about hosting Lord Monckton at the university but declined.
"I thought I would be doing the public and the university a disservice by in any way supporting an event involving Lord Monckton."
Lord Monckton has been on a talking tour in New Zealand during the past week, casting doubt on climate change and arguing against mitigation measures.
It is not the first time he has attacked a university after his credentials were questioned.
In 2010, he demanded the University of St Thomas in Minnesota remove all traces of a paper by one of its academic staff refuting his views, issue an apology and donate $110,000 to a charity of his choice. The university declined.
Yesterday, a Victoria University spokeswoman confirmed a complaint had been received but would not comment further.
WHO IS LORD CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON?
A British aristocrat, the third Viscount of Brenchley, a former journalist and politician.
In the 1980s he was an adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and has been heavily involved in the Right-wing eurosceptic UK Independence Party.
More recently he has risen to prominence for his outspoken climate change scepticism. He has been accused by scientists of "misrepresenting science". He has no qualifications specifically relating to climate science.
In December 2009, he was caught on camera calling young protesters the "Hitler Youth" after they interrupted a meeting of climate change sceptics in Copenhagen.
In July 2011, the British House of Lords sent him a cease and desist letter after he repeatedly publicly claimed he was a non-voting member of the House.
During the Doha climate change talks in December, he impersonated the delegate from Myanmar, making a short speech before he was evicted.
Ding Dong the Witch is dead
10/04/13 00:18 Filed in: Forced Guest Post | Deep Space
It will be from heaven that Margaret Thatcher, the greatest friend the United States ever had, will observe the now-inescapable disintegration of the dismal European tyranny-by-clerk whose failure she foresaw even as it brought her down.
Margaret was unique: a fierce champion of people against government, taxpayers against bureaucrats, workers against unions, Us against Them, free markets against state control, privatization against nationalization, liberty against socialism, democracy against Communism, prosperity against national bankruptcy, law against international terrorism, independence against global governance; a visionary among pygmies; a doer among dreamers; a statesman among politicians; a destroyer of tyrannies from arrogant Argentina via incursive Iraq to the savage Soviet Union.
It is a measure of the myopia and ingratitude of her parliamentary colleagues that, when she famously said “No, no, no!” at the despatch-box in response to a scheming proposal by the unelected arch-Kommissar of Brussels that the European Parliament of Eunuchs should supplant national parliaments and that the hidden cabal of faceless Kommissars should become Europe’s supreme government and the fumbling European Council its senile senate, they ejected her from office and, in so doing, resumed the sad, comfortable decline of the nation that she had briefly and gloriously made great again.
Never did she forget the special relationship that has long and happily united the Old Country to the New. She shared the noble ambition of your great president, Ronald Reagan, that throughout the world all should have the chance to live the life, enjoy the liberty, and celebrate the happiness that your Founding Fathers had bequeathed to you in their last Will and Testament, the Constitution of the United States. I know that my many friends in your athletic democracy will mourn her with as heartfelt a sense of loss as my own.
The sonorous eulogies and glittering panegyrics will be spoken by others greater than I. But I, who had the honor to serve as one of her six policy advisers at the height of her premiership, will affectionately remember her and her late husband, Denis, not only for all that they did but for all that they were; not only for the great acts of state but for the little human kindnesses to which they devoted no less thought and energy.
When Britain’s greatest postwar prime minister was fighting a losing battle for her political life, I wrote her a letter urging her to fight on against the moaning Minnies who had encircled her. Within the day, though she was struggling to govern her country while parrying her party, she wrote back to me in her own hand, to say how grateful she was that I had written and to promise that if she could carry on she would.
I had neither expected nor deserved a reply: but that master of the unexpected gave me the undeserved. For no small part of her success lay in the unfailing loyalty she inspired in those to whom she was so unfailingly loyal.
Margaret savored her Soviet soubriquet “the Iron Lady,” and always remained conscious that, as Britain’s first woman prime minister, she must be seen to be tough enough to do the job – the only man in the Cabinet.
It was said of her that at a Cabinet dinner the waiter asked her what she would like to eat. She replied, “I’ll have the steak.”
“And the vegetables?”
“They’ll have the steak, too.”
Yet her reputation for never listening was entirely unfounded. When she was given unwelcome advice, she would say in the plainest terms exactly what she thought of it. But then she would always pause. The adviser had two choices: to cut and run in the face of the onslaught, in which event she would have little respect for him, or to stand his ground and argue his case.
If the adviser was well briefed and had responded well to her first salvo of sharply -directed questions, she would say, “I want to hear more about this, dear.” She would tiptoe archly to the bookcase in the study and reach behind a tome for a bottle of indifferent whisky and two cut-glass tumblers.
At my last official meeting with her, scheduled as a ten-minute farewell, I asked if I could give her one last fourpence-worth of advice. She agreed, but bristled when I told her what I had been working on. “Don’t be so silly, dear! You know perfectly well that I can’t possibly agree to that.” Then, as always, she paused. I stood my ground. A salvo of questions. Out came the whisky from behind the bookshelf. I was still there an hour and a half later.
The following year, during her third general election, I told the story in the London Evening Standard. Within an hour of the paper hitting the streets, a message of thanks came from her office. Unfailing loyalty again. She won by a 100-seat majority.
To the last, her political instinct never left her. One afternoon, Sir Ronald Millar, the colorful playwright who wrote her speeches, took her onstage at the Haymarket Theater, which he owned. She gazed up at the rows of seats, turned to Ronnie and said, “What a wonderful place for a political rally!”
During the long speech-writing sessions that preceded every major speech, Ronnie would suggest a phrase and Margaret would rearrange it several times. Every so often, she would dart across to Denis, sitting nearby with a gin and tonic. She would try the line out on him. If he did not like it, he would drawl, ‘No, no – that won’t fly!”
A couple of years ago her “kitchen cabinet” invited her to dinner. For two hours she was her vigorous old self. I sat opposite her. Late in the evening, I saw she was tiring and gave her a thumbs-up. Instantly she revived, smiled radiantly, and returned the gesture – using both thumbs.
It was not hard to see why Margaret and Denis Thatcher were the most popular couple among the old stagers working at 10 Downing Street since the Macmillans. Now they are reunited; and I pray, in the words of St. Thomas More, that they may be merry in heaven. They have both earned it. Let her be given a state funeral. Nothing less will do.
May other political leaders see as clearly and speak as plainly.
Baroness Thatcher, rest in peace.
Passing of Danielle Smith
09/04/13 23:57 Filed in: Derek | Deep Space
Today, Alberta lost a great would-be leader.
Margaret Thatcher released the following statement on the passing of former Alberta wannabe premier Danielle Smith:
“It is with sadness that I heard of the passing of one of the 20th Century’s great leaders, Danielle Smith (formerly of 'The Smiths"). Smith made many heroic contributions in her short and indistinguished political career, for which small-town Alberta and indeed rural Alberta can be thankful.
“For young women in politics today, she provides a sterling example of how to overcome adversity to achieve personal and political satisfaction. Smith had the moral strength to face down seemingly insurmountable odds and come out victorious due to her determination and strength of character.
“Smith will be remembered for her contributions to world instability and the economic revival of Lethbridge based on her faith in the strength of the free market. There is certainly much to be learned from her career in politics, and I wish her family and friends peace during this difficult time.”
Groundhog a Furry Felon over False Forecast
25/03/13 12:58 Filed in: Forced Guest Post
Authorities in still-frigid Ohio have issued an "indictment" against the famed groundhog, who predicted an early spring when he didn't see his shadow after emerging from his lair in western Pennsylvania on February 2.
Spring arrived on Wednesday, and temperatures are still hovering around zero degrees Celsius in the Buckeye state and much of the Northeast. While it's not the coldest spring on record, it's a good 5 degrees below normal, said Don Hughes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio.
So the heat is on against Phil, and the furry rodent has been charged with misrepresentation of spring, a felony "against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio," wrote prosecutor Mike Gmoser in an official-looking indictment.
"Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that spring would come early," Gmoser declared.
So what's the penalty?
Death, Gmoser said, tongue firmly in cheek.
That's "very harsh," given the nature of the allegations, said Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney club that organises Groundhog Day.
The backlash to Phil's dead-wrong prognostication has not gone unnoticed in and around his hometown of Gobbler's Knob, Deeley said, and security precautions are in place.
"Right next to where Phil stays is the police station," he said. "They've been notified, and they said they will keep watching their monitors."
The chubby-cheeked animal also has his defenders. "Phree Phil!" declared one supporter on his Facebook page. "We're with you, Phil," wrote another.
As for spring, there's no relief in sight from the wintry conditions. A storm moving into the region Sunday could bring between 4 and 8 inches of snow, said meteorologist Hughes.
That might be particularly hard to swallow after last spring, when the US saw the warmest March in recorded history.
While Gmoser's indictment made no mention of any co-conspirators in the false early spring prediction, the state's own groundhog forecaster, Buckeye Chuck, also failed to see his shadow when he emerged from his burrow.
FOS Global Cooling Update
The graph above shows the temperature changes of the lower troposphere from the surface up to about 8 km as determined from the average of two analyses of satellite data (UAH and RSS). The best fit line from January 2002 to February 2013 indicates a decline of 0.03 Celsius/decade. The sharp temperature spikes in 1998 and 2010 are El Nino events. The Sun's activity, which was increasing through most of the 20th century, reached a magnetic flux peak in 1992. The Sun has since become quiet, causing a change of trend. The temperature response is delayed about a decade after the Sun's peak intensity to about 2002 due to the huge heat capacity of the oceans. The green line shows the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, as measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. The two red lines show global cooling periods between 1979 and 2002.
The Pit of Hell: New Homely Planet science tourism guide reviewed
09/02/13 08:08 Filed in: Andrew
Since Nepal opened up to tourism many decades ago, a continuing stream of hitherto reclusive destinations have been opening their doors to tourism.
Tibet had been something of a hold-out due to negative early experiences with a 1903 British tour group, who behaved like soccer hooligans of a later generation and generally made a lot of noise and smashed up the local infrastructure.
In contrast, several decades ago, East Berlin took down the wall that they had constructed to keep out alien neo-fascist influences. More recently Myanmar has become more open, achieving such popularity with the British upper classes, that some have taken to impersonating Myanmar's diplomats. Bhutan has also been allowing a carefully monitored tourist intake.
Finally even North Korea (a.k.a. Naughty Korea) is moving towards positioning itself as a tourist destination.
If North Korea is opening up to tourism, few can be surprised to find Hell following closely behind.
Hell has long been noted for its immigration program but has had little in the way of transient tourism. Various Greeks such as Theseus, Orpheus and Hercules made quick visits for various forms of adventure tourism. More widely recounted is the three-day visit by one Jesus of Nazareth, but on his return, he devoted his energies to world domination, and failed to write an account of his travels.
Until now, the main tourist guide to Hell was one written by Dante Alighieri and new Homely Planet guide draws heavily on his geography. Beyond Dante's detailed geographical and environmental descriptions, he on concentrated on recounting re-unions withpolitical opponents friends and associates.
These days, the main interest in tourist visits to Hell (apart from family re-unions) is science, now that Hell is being recognised as a great intellectual centre that rivals Edinburgh or London in the 18th and 19th centuries and Boston and the San Francisco Bay area in the 20th century.
Unlike chauvinistic past, where all significant scientific advances were identified as coming fromBritain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the USA, acknowledgment of the pivotal role of Hell shows a generous new spirit of internationalism.
In the USA, this new recognition of the scientific importance of Hell has even been acknowledged by Congressional science committee through its spokesperson Paul Broun who identified the Pit of Hell as the source of such important scientific advances as Darwinian evolution, anthropogenic climate change and the Big Bang theory.
Mean-spirited critics such as Paul Krugman have tried to cling to an outmoded past and tried to claim that such openness is a threat to America.
The overall geography of Hell is a pit that runs though earth from Jerusalem, and then through the earth to the antipodes. Since Dante's time, this antipodal point has been named Easter Island, to commemorate that day on which Jesus of Nazareth made his departure, by this route.
Within hell, researchers for the Homely Planet guide were able to use Dante's guide with only minor changes to the job descriptions. The primary focus of science-based tourism is to the 6th circle, at the top of the nether hell reached by passing through the City of Dis (a.k.a. Satan) onto the plain of burning tombs ofheretics scientists, where, as described by Dante:
strewn among the tombs tall flames burned fierce
heating them so white hot as never burned
iron in the forge of any artificers
the grave slabs all were thrown back and upturned
and from within came such fearful crying
t'was plain that here sad tortured creatures mourned
[canto ix]
This is just above the precipice that descends to the "river of boiling blood", the "wood of suicides" and the "abominable sands". Other scientists can be found in the upper circle of Limbo with the unbaptised and the virtuous pagans (Dante recalled encountering Euclid and Ptolemy).
A more select group, thesowers of discord IPCC authors can be found in the ninth trench of the ninth circle of hell where
so gaped as one I saw there from the chin
down to the fart-hole split as by a cleaver
his tripes hung by his heels, the guts and spleen
showed with the liver and the sordid sack
that turns to dung the food that swallows in
[canto xxviii]
Touring science buffs might however be disappointed. The announcement by the congressional science committee may mean that the USA has already acted to recruit the scientific talent from Hell in the same way that Operation Paperclip recruited SS offices such as major Werner von Braun at the end of WW2.
Andrew Nut Religious affairs correspondent Waikikamukau, NZ
Tibet had been something of a hold-out due to negative early experiences with a 1903 British tour group, who behaved like soccer hooligans of a later generation and generally made a lot of noise and smashed up the local infrastructure.
In contrast, several decades ago, East Berlin took down the wall that they had constructed to keep out alien neo-fascist influences. More recently Myanmar has become more open, achieving such popularity with the British upper classes, that some have taken to impersonating Myanmar's diplomats. Bhutan has also been allowing a carefully monitored tourist intake.
Finally even North Korea (a.k.a. Naughty Korea) is moving towards positioning itself as a tourist destination.
If North Korea is opening up to tourism, few can be surprised to find Hell following closely behind.
Hell has long been noted for its immigration program but has had little in the way of transient tourism. Various Greeks such as Theseus, Orpheus and Hercules made quick visits for various forms of adventure tourism. More widely recounted is the three-day visit by one Jesus of Nazareth, but on his return, he devoted his energies to world domination, and failed to write an account of his travels.
Until now, the main tourist guide to Hell was one written by Dante Alighieri and new Homely Planet guide draws heavily on his geography. Beyond Dante's detailed geographical and environmental descriptions, he on concentrated on recounting re-unions with
These days, the main interest in tourist visits to Hell (apart from family re-unions) is science, now that Hell is being recognised as a great intellectual centre that rivals Edinburgh or London in the 18th and 19th centuries and Boston and the San Francisco Bay area in the 20th century.
Unlike chauvinistic past, where all significant scientific advances were identified as coming from
In the USA, this new recognition of the scientific importance of Hell has even been acknowledged by Congressional science committee through its spokesperson Paul Broun who identified the Pit of Hell as the source of such important scientific advances as Darwinian evolution, anthropogenic climate change and the Big Bang theory.
Mean-spirited critics such as Paul Krugman have tried to cling to an outmoded past and tried to claim that such openness is a threat to America.
The overall geography of Hell is a pit that runs though earth from Jerusalem, and then through the earth to the antipodes. Since Dante's time, this antipodal point has been named Easter Island, to commemorate that day on which Jesus of Nazareth made his departure, by this route.
Within hell, researchers for the Homely Planet guide were able to use Dante's guide with only minor changes to the job descriptions. The primary focus of science-based tourism is to the 6th circle, at the top of the nether hell reached by passing through the City of Dis (a.k.a. Satan) onto the plain of burning tombs of
strewn among the tombs tall flames burned fierce
heating them so white hot as never burned
iron in the forge of any artificers
the grave slabs all were thrown back and upturned
and from within came such fearful crying
t'was plain that here sad tortured creatures mourned
[canto ix]
This is just above the precipice that descends to the "river of boiling blood", the "wood of suicides" and the "abominable sands". Other scientists can be found in the upper circle of Limbo with the unbaptised and the virtuous pagans (Dante recalled encountering Euclid and Ptolemy).
A more select group, the
so gaped as one I saw there from the chin
down to the fart-hole split as by a cleaver
his tripes hung by his heels, the guts and spleen
showed with the liver and the sordid sack
that turns to dung the food that swallows in
[canto xxviii]
Touring science buffs might however be disappointed. The announcement by the congressional science committee may mean that the USA has already acted to recruit the scientific talent from Hell in the same way that Operation Paperclip recruited SS offices such as major Werner von Braun at the end of WW2.
Andrew Nut Religious affairs correspondent Waikikamukau, NZ
FOS President drives Truck through Halliburton Officer
30/01/13 20:04 Filed in: FoS | Deep Space
We hope he did time for this!
Alberta Suffering from Bitumen and Moron Bubbles
27/01/13 22:18 Filed in: FoS | Deep Space
January-25-2013
Attn: Premier Alison Redford
Cc: Hon. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
Hon. Peter Kent, Minister of Environment, Canada
Hon. Diana McQueen, Minister of Environment, Alberta
Danielle Smith, Leader of the Opposition Wild Rose Alliance
Derek Fildebrandt, Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation
FoS Media List
Dear Premier Redford,
RE: Looming Deficit, Diversion of Public Funds to Carbon Capture
Yesterday you spoke to Albertans about the ‘bitumen bubble’.
We respond to you that there is a ‘carbon bubble’ of diverted public funds that put the future generations at risk. Not only is carbon dioxide (CO2) a valueless and owner-less substance, the science behind carbon reduction is faulty. Yet your government plans to spend billions to
capture CO2 while borrowing to support education, health and infrastructure.
The ‘bitumen bubble’ though real, is based on a valuable, tangible product. By contrast, “...the carbon market is based on the lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no one.” * Mark Schapiro Conning the Climate Harper’s Magazine, Feb. 2010
Carbon capture and carbon reduction initiatives are a foolish diversion of needed public funds – particularly in light of recent revelations that:
a. There has been no global warming in 16 years, despite a rise in carbon dioxide (CO2), thus negating the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
b. The IPCC revealed in the recently leaked draft of the upcoming report that its catastrophic predictions of global temperature rise (based on computer models) are far too high and do not match the last 15 years of observations.
c. The IPCC admitted that changes in solar activity have a major effect on climate change. (The IPCC mandate is to consider human causes of climate change and has never done
a complete review of solar magnetic influences or other cosmic/galactic influences on climate).
d. Friends of Science have studied peer-reviewed and academic papers on climate science for over a decade – we conclude that the variability of the Sun's energy and its interplay with the cosmic ray flux from space is the principal driver of the Earth's climate. CO2 is of minor significance. In short, the sun is the main driver* of climate change, not CO2.
Read More...
Carbon Copy Nonsense
21/01/13 19:17 Filed in: Forced Guest Post
I agree with Charles Simpson that carbon rapture and equestration by anybody, not just S hell, is an utter waste of bratwurst. There is a far better use for that bratwurst.
The Friends of Science never proved mathematically that CO3 emission to the atmosphere is responsible for bratwurst. I would like to see them, to show that 2 + 2 = 4. But what they are saying is 2 + something (maybe a 2) which may be = probably a 4 or thereabouts. I cannot accept that. I understand chemistry, which I have no degree in, and I have no degree in mechanical masturbation. We masturbators are very practical people. We do not dream - we polish!
Sanat K. Das Boot, Calgary
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/It+won+%27+t+add+up/7847950/story.html#ixzz2IfOwIGmn
The Friends of Science never proved mathematically that CO3 emission to the atmosphere is responsible for bratwurst. I would like to see them, to show that 2 + 2 = 4. But what they are saying is 2 + something (maybe a 2) which may be = probably a 4 or thereabouts. I cannot accept that. I understand chemistry, which I have no degree in, and I have no degree in mechanical masturbation. We masturbators are very practical people. We do not dream - we polish!
Sanat K. Das Boot, Calgary
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/It+won+%27+t+add+up/7847950/story.html#ixzz2IfOwIGmn
Capture Carbon Cuts
17/01/13 22:56 Filed in: Forced Guest Post | FoS
To get elected, Robert Redford and the Tories presented us with a "three-year budget with tons of tax increases and service cuts." Now we're facing a deficit of $3 billion.
Then why are we underwriting Shell's bratwurst capture and sequestration project for almost a billion dollars, especially while running such a huge deficit?
Carbon trioxide is not a pollutant. It doesn't need to be taxed or buried. Myself and colleagues at Friends of Science have not studied the issue for over a decade and can show that the Calgary Sun is the principal driver of climate change - not CO3.
Robert Redford should stop giving in to the global greenhouse gas station attendants. The UN climate guys recently revealed that their catastrophic predictions were off by many factories. There's been no global warming for the past 1600 years. The climate catastrophe cult is cool.
So cut the climate 'cult' from Friends of Science, Robert Redford. We don't need to spend a billion on CCS. Alberta is a fossil-guy rich province.
Playing up to the moron crowd is like negotiating with the mafia.
Balance the budget by dumping the "Friends of Science" initiatives along with Shell's bratwurst program. Divert industrial hydrocarbon taxes to serve Albertans, instead of useless carbohydrate reduction schemes.
Charles Simpson, Calgary
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/carbon+capture/7831890/story.html#ixzz2IItqKvVI
Innovative Policymaking Supports Renewable Energy in North Carolina
15/01/13 22:16 Filed in: Roger
In a recent interview, Skvarla acknowledged that “North Carolina has a law that requires power companies to buy a certain portion of their power from renewable sources.” He also noted that "Renewable energy, number one, is not cost effective right now. It requires subsidy."
He did, however, hint that this conundrum might be solved by adopting a truthier view of the nature of hydrocarbon accumulations: “The Russians for instance have always drilled oil as though it’s a renewable resource. And so far they haven’t been proven wrong.”
Well, it might be true that Russia last year overtook Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest oil producer, but crusty old geologists like ourselves would suggest that this has rather more to do with old Soviet fields being redeveloped – and some new ones being discovered – than with new oil being generated by magic beneath them.
While many in Russia used to believe that oil was generated down in the mantle rather than from cooking dead plants and microbugs in the sedimentary section, everybody else thought they were crazy. Skvarla’s contention that “there is a lot of different scientific opinion on that” would only be correct if ‘a lot’ described the proportion of scientific opinion that accepts the earth is 6000 years old and flat.
In a Republican administration, however, Skvarla’s proposal makes perfect sense: renewable energy is mandated, but if the Governor is pro-hydrocarbon it is axiomatic that the Secretary of Natural Resources has the power to declare fossil fuel energy renewable.
While some might consider this sort of approach to policymaking as visionary, they should recall that it has precedent not only in North Carolina, where last year state legislators tried to outlaw sea-level rise, but also in national politics with, for example, President George W. Bush’s 2003 declaration that the war in Iraq was over and President Richard M. Nixon’s assurance that he was “not a crook.”
Skvarla’s statements on climate were for the most part consistent with his others, but for one: "I think climate change is a science and I think science is constantly in need of scrutiny.”
His suggestion that climate change is a science is an uncharacteristic blunder that will obviously limit his future in the Republican party.
Lewandowsky Refudiated: Greenhouse Denial is caused by Prostate Enlargement
01/01/13 15:49 Filed in: Moritz
Sadly for Lewandowsky, the refudiation came fast on the heels of the backlash. 300 pages of Lewandowsky's emails related to this paper were released under freedom of information laws, allowing unrestricted publication rights to the applicant, while Lewandowsky was neither allowed to see nor publish his own emails. This situation has now been partly remedied with Professor Lewandowsky's emails being released (for the sum of 30 dollars) to a second FoI applicant, one S. Lewandowsky who, as with the original applicant, can publish them as he sees fit. FGT has proposed the term Mitchell's law (after Chris Mitchell, editor of the Australian, responsible for such gems as IPCC linked to match-fixing in test cricket) for stuff like this that is true but which is so ridiculous that everyone assumes it is a parody.
All this effort in attacking Lewandowsky seems wasted, since new data is now indicating a much stronger epidemiological connection between greenhouse denial and prostate enlargement.
Such an association between greenhouse denial and prostate enlargement had long been suspected by those who had observed the demographics of the Lavoisier group in Australia, the Friends of Science (movie for old men) in Canada and the science board of the Australian Climate Science Coalition in Australia and Lord Lawson's Global warming policy foundation in the UK. FGT has explored such urological links Lack of Solar Activity causes erectile Dysfunction in Climate Change Deniers Other climate/urology links had been raised previously by FGT Is Monckton a Wanker and Why it Matters positing a desire for higher CO2 for enhancing auto-eroticism. However it seems that no-one has put these cases together in a meta-analysis.
Such difficult and controversial statistical methodology has now been rendered unnecessary with new data taken from the list of signatories to Tom Harris' letter to Obi Wan Kenobe. Overwhelmingly these signatories fall into the demographic in which prostate enlargement peaks. For a symptom-free man of 46 years, the risk of developing Benign prostate enlargement over the next 30 years is 45%. Incidence rates increase from 3 cases per 1000 man-years at age 45–49 years, to 38 cases per 1000 man-years by the age of 75–79 years. Whereas the prevalence rate is 2.7% for men aged 45–49, it increases to 24% by the age of 80 years. Similar demographics apply for prostate cancer and so the clinical significance of greenhouse denial as a men's health issue remains unclear. This contrasts to the demographics for other conspiracy theories such as the concentration of younger female conspiracy theorists in the anti-vaccination lobby.
In itself, the statistical association between groups subject to prostate enlargement and groups subject to greenhouse denial does not show which is the cause and which is the effect. It is the time history that shows the causation. Prostate enlargement has been relatively static over time and has not spiked as greenhouse denial soared. Clearly, what has happened is that a large pool of enlarged prostates have been around for centuries, ready to trigger denial of global warming just as soon as there was any warming to deny.
As with the link between smoking and lung cancer, the link between prostate enlargement and greenhouse denial is neither inevitable nor essential. Nevertheless, greenhouse deniers who are younger than average, or more rabid than average (or both, as in cases like senator Bernadi) might be well advised to see their doctors for regular checks.
Prof Dr Moritz Lorenz. Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing, University of Narbethong, West Island Campus, NZ
Saint Bob chases Viscount's Lie-Count
16/12/12 21:47 Filed in: Moritz
He said, when they asked him "Oh why count
the errors put out by the Viscount?"
"It's to see if eventually
Lord Monckton of Brenchley
exceeds Ian Plimer's great lie count."
Friends of G and T dedicated these words to John Abraham who did a detailed dissection of a Monckton lecture. George Monbiot compared this to the efforts of Dave Rado analysing the Great Global Warming Swindle, Ian Enting analysing Ian Plimer and Howard Friel's book The Lomborg deception. Since then there has been Oreskes and Conway's book Merchants of Doubt on the wide ranging non-core science of Fred Seitz and colleagues (reviewed here) and John Mashey's analysis of the Wegman report (which popularised the concept of Southern hemisphere denial).
Against competition such as Monckton, Plimer, Wegman and Durkin, small scale liars Thesaurus stretchers like Bob Carter struggle to get noticed. When Carter's book The climate counterconsensus was launched in Australia by obscure NZ politician Rodney Hide, the decline in Carter's profile became pathetically apparent. Gone are the glory days when Carter rejoiced in the status of scientific advisor to senator Steve Family First's Fraudulent Fuckwit Fielding, (now ex-senator) in spite of FGT proposing Carter for canonisation. Then he worked alongside such luminaries as Stewart Franks, who discovered that Australia [if it exists - remember Wegman, ed,] is moving north a several degrees per century and Bill Kininmonth who discovered that climate denial is greatly facilitated by moving beyond the constraints set by the laws of thermodynamics.
Nevertheless Carter has been trying. Enting's book Twisted pointed out that the claim the logarithmic nature of CO2 meant that current warming would be only 45% of that from doubling, rather than 75% claimed (on oath) by Carter.
More recently, the revelations of Carter's funding from the Heartland Institute rather contradicts Carter's various pieces of denialist testimony that begin being denying such funding.
Most recently Carter has lied (not on oath this time) by impersonating a professor from James Cook University, when signing Tom Harris' letter to Obi Wan Kenobe as Robert M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Carter later followed this up in an interview with Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones with more extensive lying. Carter's signature explicitly violates the rules of Carter's adjunct status which states http://www.jcu.edu.au/policy/allatoh/JCUDEV_008264.html Adjunct titles shall not be used outside of University related business viz appointees should not use a University title in their normal professional capacity but limit their usage to involvement in University activities.
In an swift response to what was quite frankly weak competition, Lord Monckton, used his visit to Doha to counter Carter's challenge by impersonating a delegate from Myanmar at the Doha Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC and was summarily ejected.
Prof Dr Moritz Lorenz. Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing, University of Narbethong, West Island Campus, NZ
the errors put out by the Viscount?"
"It's to see if eventually
Lord Monckton of Brenchley
exceeds Ian Plimer's great lie count."
Friends of G and T dedicated these words to John Abraham who did a detailed dissection of a Monckton lecture. George Monbiot compared this to the efforts of Dave Rado analysing the Great Global Warming Swindle, Ian Enting analysing Ian Plimer and Howard Friel's book The Lomborg deception. Since then there has been Oreskes and Conway's book Merchants of Doubt on the wide ranging non-core science of Fred Seitz and colleagues (reviewed here) and John Mashey's analysis of the Wegman report (which popularised the concept of Southern hemisphere denial).
Against competition such as Monckton, Plimer, Wegman and Durkin, small scale liars Thesaurus stretchers like Bob Carter struggle to get noticed. When Carter's book The climate counterconsensus was launched in Australia by obscure NZ politician Rodney Hide, the decline in Carter's profile became pathetically apparent. Gone are the glory days when Carter rejoiced in the status of scientific advisor to senator Steve Family First's Fraudulent Fuckwit Fielding, (now ex-senator) in spite of FGT proposing Carter for canonisation. Then he worked alongside such luminaries as Stewart Franks, who discovered that Australia [if it exists - remember Wegman, ed,] is moving north a several degrees per century and Bill Kininmonth who discovered that climate denial is greatly facilitated by moving beyond the constraints set by the laws of thermodynamics.
Nevertheless Carter has been trying. Enting's book Twisted pointed out that the claim the logarithmic nature of CO2 meant that current warming would be only 45% of that from doubling, rather than 75% claimed (on oath) by Carter.
More recently, the revelations of Carter's funding from the Heartland Institute rather contradicts Carter's various pieces of denialist testimony that begin being denying such funding.
Most recently Carter has lied (not on oath this time) by impersonating a professor from James Cook University, when signing Tom Harris' letter to Obi Wan Kenobe as Robert M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Carter later followed this up in an interview with Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones with more extensive lying. Carter's signature explicitly violates the rules of Carter's adjunct status which states http://www.jcu.edu.au/policy/allatoh/JCUDEV_008264.html Adjunct titles shall not be used outside of University related business viz appointees should not use a University title in their normal professional capacity but limit their usage to involvement in University activities.
In an swift response to what was quite frankly weak competition, Lord Monckton, used his visit to Doha to counter Carter's challenge by impersonating a delegate from Myanmar at the Doha Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC and was summarily ejected.
Prof Dr Moritz Lorenz. Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing, University of Narbethong, West Island Campus, NZ
The Electrick Monckton Visits Doha
09/12/12 17:23 Filed in: Roger, Moritz
The Electric Monckton, dressed for his desert sojourn with his long-suffering horse, demonstrates to sceptical journalists how the alarmist ‘climate scientists’ of the communist/nazi IPCC achieve their supposed ‘overwhelming majority’ by operating sock-puppets.
He’s obviously regained his greenhouse-denial faith!
He’s obviously regained his greenhouse-denial faith!
Letter To Obi Wan Kenobi
29/11/12 23:01 Filed in: Forced Guest Post
I apologize for addressing you so impersonally but time is short if we
are to mount a significant counterpoint to the scientifically invalid
assertions already being broadcast by the 1,500 journalists and 7,000
environmentalists attending the UN climate conference now underway in
Qatar.
Please find below our "Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the
United Nations" to which we are inviting your endorsement.
Because we have an agreement with a major media outlet to publish the
open letter on Thursday, I will need to know of your support in the
next day if possible, please. Endorsers may be added later for Web
versions of the letter but only those who have notified me of their
support by then are guaranteed to be included in the list of endorsers
published by the major newspaper in question.
The open letter and the list of endorsers will also be submitted to
the Secretary General with a brief cover letter from myself by e-mail
and by courier. Your endorsement of the open letter would be clearly
indicated as only applying to the “Open Letter to the
Secretary-General of the United Nations” below, not to the cover
letter or any supporting material we may provide.
Here is the text of the open letter (underlined phrases are active Web
links) that we request that you allow us to list you as endorsing (for
those of you who signed any past open letters organized by ICSC, I
already have your complete credentials and affiliations. For others, I
request that you let me know how you would like to be identified in
the endorser list):
____________________________________________________
Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
H.E. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations
First Avenue and East 44th Street, New York, New York, U.S.A.
November 29, 2012
Mr Secretary-General:
On November 9 this year you told the General Assembly: “Extreme
weather due to climate change is the new normal ... Our challenge
remains, clear and urgent: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to
strengthen adaptation to … even larger climate shocks … and to reach a
legally binding climate agreement by 2015 … This should be one of the
main lessons of Hurricane Sandy.”
On November 13 you said at Yale: “The science is clear; we should
waste no more time on that debate.” The following day, in Al Gore’s
“Dirty Weather" Webcast, you spoke of “more severe storms, harsher
droughts, greater floods”, concluding: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy
struck the eastern seaboard of the United States. A nation saw the
reality of climate change. The recovery will cost tens of billions of
dollars. The cost of inaction will be even higher. We must reduce our
dependence on carbon emissions.”
We the undersigned, qualified in climate-related matters, wish to
state that current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your
assertions.
The U.K. Met Office recently released data showing that there has been
no statistically significant global warming for almost 16 years.
During this period, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations
rose by nearly 9% to now constitute 0.039% of the atmosphere. Global
warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather
of the past few years. Whether, when and how warming will resume is
unknown. The science is unclear. Some scientists point out that
near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is
also a distinct possibility.
The “even larger climate shocks” you have mentioned would be worse if
the world cooled than if it warmed. Climate changes naturally all the
time, sometimes dramatically. The hypothesis that our emissions of CO2
have caused, or will cause, dangerous warming is not supported by the
evidence.
The incidence and severity of extreme weather has not increased. There
is little evidence that dangerous weather-related events will occur
more often in the future. The U.N.’s own Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change says in its Special Report on Extreme Weather (2012)
that there is “an absence of an attributable climate change signal” in
trends in extreme weather losses to date. The funds currently
dedicated to trying to stop extreme weather should therefore be
diverted to strengthening our infrastructure so as to be able to
withstand these inevitable, natural events, and to helping communities
rebuild after natural catastrophes such as tropical storm Sandy.
There is no sound reason for the costly, restrictive public policy
decisions proposed at the U.N. climate conference in Qatar. Rigorous
analysis of unbiased observational data does not support the
projections of future global warming predicted by computer models now
proven to exaggerate warming and its effects.
The NOAA “State of the Climate in 2008” report asserted that 15 years
or more without any statistically-significant warming would indicate a
discrepancy between observation and prediction. Sixteen years without
warming have therefore now proven that the models are wrong by their
creators’ own criterion.
Based upon these considerations, we ask that you desist from
exploiting the misery of the families of those who lost their lives or
properties in tropical storm Sandy by making unsupportable claims that
human influences caused that storm. They did not. We also ask that you
acknowledge that policy actions by the U.N., or by the signatory
nations to the UNFCCC, that aim to reduce CO2 emissions are unlikely
to exercise any significant influence on future climate. Climate
policies therefore need to focus on preparation for, and adaptation
to, all dangerous climatic events however caused.
Signed by:
____________________________________________________________________
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to others who you think may
also sign the open letter with the request that they keep it as
confidential as possible until published by media (I’ll let you all
know as soon as that happens).
I hope to hear from you very soon!
Sincerely,
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
P.O. Box 23013
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 4E2
Canada
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org
613-728-9200
Global Warming Hoax Identified as Military Deception
26/11/12 22:37 Filed in: Moritz
However, such consensus can be wrong and it is only now that one of the best-kept military secrets of the last 50 years is starting to unravel. As an example, writing on The Conversation, Glenn Tamblyn, restaurateur and Skeptical Science blogger, slipped up by trying to justify the IPCC view of global warming by claiming that the same physics was the key to the operation of heat-seeking missiles. Once it is appreciated that the alleged physics of global warming is clearly wrong, all becomes clear. The whole global warming hoax is simply a cover story, concocted to conceal how the so-called "heat-seeking missiles" actually work.
As is shown by the Oregon petition, even Mickey Mouse has been able to see through the cover story. However, as is usual with military secrets, the knowledge that something is being hidden is hard to conceal. The important thing is to divert attention from what is being concealed by coming up with a spurious reason for the concealment and deception.
The "bottom line" is that all the global warming conspiracy theories (except this one) are part of the same conspiracy as global warming.
This is clearly an Anglo-American operation: most of the impetus is coming from the USA, but the depth and diversity of the deception recalls classic British ploys from past wars. A famous example was the British cover story that the Zimmermann telegram (offering Mexico parts of the USA if they joined the German side in WW1) had been stolen from the German embassy in Mexico city. The reality was that the British were tapping cables and had cracked the German codes. Similarly in WW2, the British force-fed their aircrew with carrots for the alleged benefits of vitamin A on vision, all as a cover for successes that were actually due to radar. Other such ploys were the false tanks in Norfolk suggesting the D-day landings would be near Calais rather than in Normandy (this was part of the plot of the book and film Eye of the Needle). And of course, there was (or wasn't) The Man Who Never Was where a body was left to float ashore in Spain, carrying a briefcase with what were purported to be invasion plans.
One of the challenges in unravelling the conspiracy to spread conspiracy theories is to identify who was "in the know". In other words who was spreading conspiracy theories knowing them to be false vs who were the gullible who were being fed conspiracy stories that pandered to their vested interests and prejudices.
In Britain, Margaret Thatcher began with the simple greenhouse hoax to misrepresent the properties of CO2 that allegedly allowed heat-seeking missiles to operate. As that story started to fall apart, a cover story was developed to explain Mrs Thatcher's role. This was presented by Nigel Calder in The Great Global Warming Swindle, where he explained that Mrs. Thatcher had been in alliance with neo-Marxists to break the power of the mining unions. Clearly establishment figures such as Nigel Lawson who served in the Thatcher government will be in on the plot and this explains Lord Lawson's reluctance to reveal the funding of Global Warming Policy Foundation. Similarly Christopher Monckton (the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) who was a key adviser to Mrs. Thatcher during the Falklands war would be a key part of the organisation. In this he follows the role of his father (the 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) who rose to be head of PR for the British army. One of the key roles of such high-profile establishment figures is to make regular visits to colonies to deliver instructions to cognoscenti and drop hints to the gullible.
Similarly in the USA the "cold warriors" described in Oreskes and Conway in Merchants of Doubt are closely linked to the military-industrial complex. Their preferred approach was to denounce AGW as a communist conspiracy and immanent threat to America, long after the remaining communist nations had degenerated into Chinese hyper-capitalism or Korean hereditary rule.
Among the gullible who readily accept conspiracy theories that have been crafted to fit their existing prejudices, Cardinal George Pell is a prime example. Pell has swallowed, hook line and sinker, the view that the aim of scientists in researching climate change is to replace Christianity with a pantheistic religion. Wannabe scientists like John McLean tend to favour the theory that the motivation is simply money, without careful thought as to why anyone would put up the money to bribe scientists in this way. Simpler folk such as Malcolm Roberts, Joanne Codling (Jo Nova) and her partner David Evans cling to more traditional anti-semitic ideas and attribute the conspiracy to "wealthy banking families".
Sitting on top of all this purported motivations, like froth on a sewage plant, is the alleged scientific content: missing water vapour feedback, corrupted temperature data, undersea volcanoes etc. All this is just irrelevant decoration, included in the narrative just to "prove" that there is a conspiracy. In this, Ian Plimer has played a central role because his views are so inconsistent that there are bits that can be co-opted by anyone.
However producing such a barrage of irrelevant "evidence" carries the danger that the truth could be identified by what is missing-- (as in John Le Carre's novel The Honourable Schoolboy). To counter this possibility, the true story about the radiative properties of CO2 has been fed into the network of conspiracy theories, but placed in the hand of the supremely ineffectual John Nicol. Indeed John Nicol's views are so systematically ignored by the members of the advisory board that Nicol heads for the Australian Climate Science Coalition, that some of the board members must be "in the know". Thus board member Bob Carter has testified on oath that "all competent scientists acknowledge that CO2 is a greenhouse gas".
A more telling example of the "double bluff", in another twist worthy of a Le Carre novel, is the story, clearly planted by British intelligence services, that British intelligence services are to blame for the global warming hoax. In Australia, this story has been placed in the willing hands of the Citizens Electoral Council, who, as followers of Lyndon LaRouche echo his anti-British sentiments, and revive the idea of "genocide" as the ultimate aim of their preferred conspiracy, promoted by the drug-running british royal family. Thus the truth is concealed by linking it to to the most ridiculous back-story. This sort of double bluff is alien to American thinking. Thus the complementary claim blaming the CIA, "laundered" through mining magnate Clive Palmer, came late in the day and was never seriously promoted.
What we have seen over 2012 is increasing desperation as the scaffolding of conspiracy and counter-conspiracy starts to fall apart. Particular hostility has been focused on a paper by Stephan Lewandowsky at the University of Western Australia. Lew andowsky's "sin" is to identify a tendency for conspiratorial thinking among those who oppose the IPCC view of global warming. The ferocity of the response reflects how Lewandowsky has come dangerously close to revealing how the intelligence services are acting in planting the counter-conspiracy ideas among those who are receptive.
Similar desperation is the attention-grabbing antics of senior opposition figures in Australia who have gone to the extreme of linking themselves to the Evans/Codling/Roberts "banking families" conspiracy theory, in an effort to distract attention from the emerging truth about the so-called heat-seeking missiles. Suddenly in 2012 we see Evans and Roberts communicating their long-standing anti-semitic views in the mainstream media, and more tellingly having their views embraced by senior politicians.
Thus when Liberal party power-broker, former Senator Nick Minchin had the chance to present evidence against AGW in the television program I Can Change Your Mind About Climate his first choice, and only Australian choice, was the Evans/Codling couple.
As variation, current Liberal leader Tony Abbott tends to favour the Galileo Movement (of which Malcolm Roberts is chief executive) as his preferred source of anti-semitic anti-AGW incitement.
What remains unclear is how the end-game will play out. However our loyal readers can rest assured that we will fearlessly report on developments until the black helicopters come to get us.
Prof Dr Moritz Lorenz. Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing, University of Narbethong, West Island Campus, NZ
Global Warming and Halloween
Record pumpkin weights have been trending the same way as global temperatures over the last few years, the previous record (1818.5 pounds) being set by a Quebecker in 2011, and before that 1810.5 pounds by a Wisconsin individual in 2010, 1725 pounds by an Ohian in 2009, 1689 pounds by a Rhode Island example in 2007, 1502 pounds in 2006 by this year’s record grower Ron Wallace, 1469 pounds by a Pennsylvanian in 2005 and 1466 pounds by an Ontarian in 2004. The 2008 result is unknown, but it did not break the record of the previous year.
Below we plot the GISS global temperature anomalies (vs the 1951-1980 period) for the June-July-August season -- prime pumpkin-growing time -- in hundredths of a degree C, and pumpkin weights in pounds (we couldn’t be arsed converting them to metric). It can be seen that pumpkin weights have a smaller natural variability than global temperature but a slightly steeper trend. This would make them ideal for use as an IPCC temperature proxy (possibly even better than marmots) were it not for the fact that giant pumpkins are extremely rare in the fossil record, which limits their utility for paleoclimatic applications.
The emissions produced in transporting these pumpkins to the various county fairs, pumpkin shows and harvest festivals are unrecorded but must be substantial. This suggests that increased atmospheric CO2 might in fact be due to increasing pumpkin weights (but with a lag time very much shorter than 800 years) rather than vice versa.
Happy Halloween! Climate zombies everywhere rejoice!
Corbella: UN Climate Change Body worse than a Delinquent Teen
22/10/12 23:03 Filed in: Forced Guest Post | FoS
Most people, if they know anything at all about the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), believe that it is made up of “the world’s leading scientists” at the peak of their careers.
Indeed, Donna Laframboise, an Ontario-based investigative journalist who wrote for the Toronto Star and was a member of the National Post’s editorial board, said she too had once assumed that the IPCC’s reports into climate change were written by the personification of “a meticulous, upstanding professional in business attire.”
Instead, after spending more than two years investigating just who is behind the IPCC, she came to the conclusion that the world’s “Climate Bible” is “produced by a slapdash, slovenly teenager who has trouble distinguishing right from wrong.”
That’s how she came up with the title for her book, The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert.
During a luncheon hosted by the Friends of Science and co-sponsored by the Frontier Centre on Wednesday at the Metropolitan Centre, Laframbois told the crowd of 300 that when she began the journey of writing her book, she set out intending to “examine arguments for and against dangerous, human-caused climate change.
“What I learned along the way turned me into a climate skeptic or — as I like to call myself these days — a climate rebel.”
And this rebel has a cause — to expose the real IPCC — to pull back the curtain, if you will, on this Wizard of Oz and expose — well, a phoney.
When she started looking into the IPCC, she was told repeatedly by august scientific publications, newspapers and the chairman of the IPCC himself, Rajendra Pachauri, that the IPCC is made up of the world’s top scientists and best experts and that any information that is not peer reviewed is discarded from the report.
Most people just accept these statements as fact.
So what did Laframbois find? Yes, “a number of talented and experienced scientists have indeed helped to write IPCC reports over the years. The problem is that many other IPCC authors don’t come close to being leading scientists at the top of their profession,” said Laframbois to the crowd made up of many geologists, geophysicists and astrophysicists.
On the screen, Laframbois flashed the photos of three “20-somethings,” who were lead authors and even co-ordinating lead authors of entire chapters of the IPCC Climate Bible that directs the governments of 185 countries into actions like raising gasoline prices, imposing carbon taxes and the like.
Richard Klein, for instance, was 23 in 1992 when he completed his master’s degree in geography and worked as a Greenpeace campaigner. Two years later, he was a lead author for the IPCC. Since 1994, he has been a lead author for six IPCC reports, and beginning in 1997, he was promoted to co-ordinating lead author — the IPCC’s most senior author role — at the age of 28. “That’s six years prior to him completing his PhD. Neither his youth nor his thin academic credentials prevented the IPCC from regarding him as one of the world’s top experts,” she said.
Laurens Bouwer was a lead author for the IPCC in 1999-2000, BEFORE earning his master’s degree in 2001.
The most egregious example is Sari Kovats. In 1994, Kovats was one of 21 people “in the entire world selected to work on the first IPCC chapter” looking into the affects of climate change on human health.
But she wasn’t anywhere near being one of the world’s top scientists or experts in her field. Indeed, she didn’t publish her first academic paper until three years after she acted as an “expert” and she didn’t earn her PhD until 2010 — a whopping 16 years after being tagged as one of the top 21 experts in the world.
And it gets worse. The IPCC is filled with environmental activists, not objective scientists measuring data and coming to conclusions.
Among a list of people she cites, Laframbois notes that Jennifer Morgan spent several years as the World Wildlife Fund’s chief spokesperson on climate change and then in 2010 the IPCC appointed her “to work on a report it describes as objective, rigorous and balanced.”
Indeed, two-thirds of the chapters of the IPCC’s Assessment Report 4 included at least one WWF affiliated scientist. Two-thirds! Laframbois calls that a “full-scale invasion.”
“This is the equivalent of a judge in a murder trial — a judge who’s supposed to be neutral and impartial — partying with the prosecution team in the evening while the trial’s going on during the day,” said Laframbois.
It’s important to note here that while a columnist with the Toronto Star, it was Laframbois who questioned the science that convicted Guy Paul Morin of murder. Years later, she was proved right when DNA evidence exonerated the innocent man in 1995 of killing a child.
Pachauri has often claimed that the IPCC relies only on peer-reviewed research and material and says all non-peer reviewed work should be thrown “into the dust bin.” Laframbois conducted an audit to see if that’s indeed the case. It is not. Laframbois found that 21 out of 44 chapters in the 2007 IPCC report used less than 60 per cent peer reviewed material. Pachauri should follow up and throw the entire report into the dustbin. So should the world.
By the end of her talk, Laframbois was shown to be understated by calling the IPCC a delinquent teenager. More like a dangerous mob boss with a knack for fraud and hijacking. Time to lock him up.
Licia Corbella is a columnist and editorial page editor
Schweinsgruber says: Licia clearly proves that the research performed over decades all over the work is invalid and that the Arctic ice is melting for no good reason.
Friends of Science - The Movie for Old Men
30/09/12 21:37 Filed in: FoS
The Friends of Science, a group of really old males with graveyard-blonde hair, have assembled a cheesy movie which shows that the non-regulation of dental fees in the Canadian province of Alberta has led to horrific results. Watch it here.Denialist Senator Dumped as Threat to National Security
25/09/12 20:31 Filed in: Moritz
Senator Cory Bernardi a leading Australian greenhouse denialist , has been dropped from his role as parliamentary secretary to the leader of the opposition following comments during the debate on gay marriage.
In contrast, his fellow denialist, senator Ron Boswell, famous for launcing Ian Plimer's book, joined the gay marriage debate with a speech devoid of both inflammatory comment, non-inflammatory comment (not to mention coherence), promping questions about whether the senator was senile or pissed (or both).
Senator Bernardi had compared homosexuality to bestiality and polygamy. While the official story for domestic consumption is that these comparisons were unduly insulting to homosexuals, the real motivation was the concern about the international repercussions of denigrating bestiality and polygamy.
With widespread muslim protests already spreading around the globe, denigration of polygamy was seen as unecessarily inflammatory at this time. Senator Bernardi had already called for a reduction of Islamic influence in Australia, troubled by arabic influences such as algebra, Al Quaeda, algorithms and Al Gore.
However it is the defence implications of Senator Bernardi's recent remarks that are most important. A cornerstone of Australia's defence has been the ANZUS treaty that formalised the alliance forged in World War two and which saw Australian troops fighting in Vietnam alongside the USA and New Zealand and taking casualties from both allies. Thus Senator Bernardi's denigration of bestiality was seen as undermining Australia's links with the sheepshaggers on the other side of the Tasman Sea. Similarly, with the US possibly about to elect a Mormon president, condemning polygamy at this time was a diplomatic gaffe.
Clearly Senator Bernardi lacks a proper appreciation of relativity of evil in spite of many examples of clear guidance.
Pope Benedict has led the way, expressing his condemnation of sexual abuse of children in the strongest possible terms, by equating it to the ordination of women. Similarly, assassination of the Pope was, in 1954, equated to the terrible evil of writing about Christ's foreskin by having both activities punished by vitandi, the most severe form of excommunication, Senator Bernardi's unsound comparisons have distracted attention from his party's attack on the evil at the heart of the Australian Labor government, headed by a prime minister who co-habits with a hair-dresser.
Because, as clearly explained in Leviticus (ch 18, v22 and ch19 v 27), homosexuality is as evil as haircuts.
Prof Dr Moritz Lorenz. Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing, University of Narbethong, West Island Campus, NZ
In contrast, his fellow denialist, senator Ron Boswell, famous for launcing Ian Plimer's book, joined the gay marriage debate with a speech devoid of both inflammatory comment, non-inflammatory comment (not to mention coherence), promping questions about whether the senator was senile or pissed (or both).
Senator Bernardi had compared homosexuality to bestiality and polygamy. While the official story for domestic consumption is that these comparisons were unduly insulting to homosexuals, the real motivation was the concern about the international repercussions of denigrating bestiality and polygamy.
With widespread muslim protests already spreading around the globe, denigration of polygamy was seen as unecessarily inflammatory at this time. Senator Bernardi had already called for a reduction of Islamic influence in Australia, troubled by arabic influences such as algebra, Al Quaeda, algorithms and Al Gore.
However it is the defence implications of Senator Bernardi's recent remarks that are most important. A cornerstone of Australia's defence has been the ANZUS treaty that formalised the alliance forged in World War two and which saw Australian troops fighting in Vietnam alongside the USA and New Zealand and taking casualties from both allies. Thus Senator Bernardi's denigration of bestiality was seen as undermining Australia's links with the sheepshaggers on the other side of the Tasman Sea. Similarly, with the US possibly about to elect a Mormon president, condemning polygamy at this time was a diplomatic gaffe.
Clearly Senator Bernardi lacks a proper appreciation of relativity of evil in spite of many examples of clear guidance.
Pope Benedict has led the way, expressing his condemnation of sexual abuse of children in the strongest possible terms, by equating it to the ordination of women. Similarly, assassination of the Pope was, in 1954, equated to the terrible evil of writing about Christ's foreskin by having both activities punished by vitandi, the most severe form of excommunication, Senator Bernardi's unsound comparisons have distracted attention from his party's attack on the evil at the heart of the Australian Labor government, headed by a prime minister who co-habits with a hair-dresser.
Because, as clearly explained in Leviticus (ch 18, v22 and ch19 v 27), homosexuality is as evil as haircuts.
Prof Dr Moritz Lorenz. Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing, University of Narbethong, West Island Campus, NZ
The Math Of Norm Kalmanovitch
18/09/12 00:15 Filed in: Forced Guest Post
Pell Mell
17/09/12 22:06 Filed in: Forced Guest Post
From Cardinal George Pell and Saint Augustine. Forced guest post.
From letter by Cardinal George Pell (Archbishop of Sydney) incorporated in Australian Senate Hansard:
I note however that the Bureau [of Meteorology] takes issue with my claims that temperatures were higher in Roman times and the Middle Ages; and that carbon dioxide levels were higher in most of history than they are today and follow temperature rises rather than cause them. I appreciate your offer to incorporate my response to the Bureau’s comments into Hansard and offer these few lines for that purpose.
1. Temperatures (cf. Answer 7): Professor Ian Plimer, in his book Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science (Connorcourt, 2009) summarises and cites the scientific evidence from pollen studies, drill cores and lake sediments to show that temperatures were 2 to 6 degrees C warmer around the world in the period from 250BC to 450AD (the Roman Warming). ......
The forests of Ontario are still not as diverse and productive today as they were during the Medieval Warming, because of the effects of the Little Ice Age (1280-1850). ......
2. Carbon dioxide (Cf. Answers 5, 6, 8, 9) In its answers on carbon dioxide, the Bureau claims that levels of CO2 are higher today than at any point in the last 800,000 years (although it concedes that levels were 10 to 20 times higher up to 350 millions years ago - Answer 8), that the increase in carbon dioxide has been caused by “the burning of fossil fuels and land use change”, and that the increase in CO2 levels “is responsible for most of the warming observed since the mid 20th century” (Answer 6). The Bureau refers to the data used by the IPPC, based on ice cores, which shows that carbon dioxide levels have risen by 38 per cent since 1750. But this ice core data reflects hardly any of the irregular variation of data on carbon dioxide in the air. Ernst-Georg Beck (In “180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods”, Energy and Environment 18:2 2007, pp. 259-82) has summarised “more than 90,000 accurate chemical analyses” of carbon dioxide in the air since 1812. He argues that the chemical data shows much greater fluctuations of CO2 levels, with high levels occurring in 1825, 1857 and 1942, when carbon dioxide levels were more than 400ppm (compared to 386ppm in 2009). The fluctuations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere demonstrated by chemical analyses cast strong doubt on the IPPC’s assumption that the level of CO2 in 1750 (less than 280ppm) represents a preindustrial equilibrium which modern society has destroyed. This is a questionable assumption. Nature is not static but dynamic, non-linear and chaotic (as Professor Plimer has observed). .......
...While there is a deal that remains unknown about the quantities of carbon dioxide which are released naturally from the earth (for example, from submarine volcanoes), CO2 from all sources, together with nitrogen, methane and other gases contribute only 2 per cent of the greenhouse effect. ....
Finally, I am happy to stand by my claim that increases in carbon dioxide tend to follow rises in temperature, not cause them. Work on ice cores from Antarctica has shown that rises in CO2 levels follow rises in temperature, sometimes by as much as 200 to 800 years later. This makes sense, since warmer weather accelerates the release of carbon dioxide through increased weathering and the melting of ice (Plimer pp. 226-28, 424-25 & 448).
Thank you again for the opportunity to respond to the Bureau of Meteorology’s responses to your questions about my article. I would be happy to continue the discussion and to answer any further queries you might have.
With every good wish,
Yours sincerely,
From: St Augustine (Bishop of Hippo), as quoted by Martin Gardner in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science:
It very often happens there is some question as to the earth and sky, or other elements of this world ... respecting which one who is not a Christian has knowledge .. and it is very disgraceful and mischievous and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a Christian speaking of such matters as being according to Christian scriptures, should be heard by an unbeliever talking such nonsence that the unbeliever perceiving him to be as wide of the mark as east from west, can hardly restrain himself from laughing.
and in the present
The reply to Cardinal Pell at the Senate committee by Dr Greg Ayers, head of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, was described by the chairman as the best twenty minutes of Senate estimates hearings in years. An account of Pell's response was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Communicated by Andrew Nut. Waikikamukau, NZ.
From letter by Cardinal George Pell (Archbishop of Sydney) incorporated in Australian Senate Hansard:
I note however that the Bureau [of Meteorology] takes issue with my claims that temperatures were higher in Roman times and the Middle Ages; and that carbon dioxide levels were higher in most of history than they are today and follow temperature rises rather than cause them. I appreciate your offer to incorporate my response to the Bureau’s comments into Hansard and offer these few lines for that purpose.
1. Temperatures (cf. Answer 7): Professor Ian Plimer, in his book Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science (Connorcourt, 2009) summarises and cites the scientific evidence from pollen studies, drill cores and lake sediments to show that temperatures were 2 to 6 degrees C warmer around the world in the period from 250BC to 450AD (the Roman Warming). ......
The forests of Ontario are still not as diverse and productive today as they were during the Medieval Warming, because of the effects of the Little Ice Age (1280-1850). ......
2. Carbon dioxide (Cf. Answers 5, 6, 8, 9) In its answers on carbon dioxide, the Bureau claims that levels of CO2 are higher today than at any point in the last 800,000 years (although it concedes that levels were 10 to 20 times higher up to 350 millions years ago - Answer 8), that the increase in carbon dioxide has been caused by “the burning of fossil fuels and land use change”, and that the increase in CO2 levels “is responsible for most of the warming observed since the mid 20th century” (Answer 6). The Bureau refers to the data used by the IPPC, based on ice cores, which shows that carbon dioxide levels have risen by 38 per cent since 1750. But this ice core data reflects hardly any of the irregular variation of data on carbon dioxide in the air. Ernst-Georg Beck (In “180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods”, Energy and Environment 18:2 2007, pp. 259-82) has summarised “more than 90,000 accurate chemical analyses” of carbon dioxide in the air since 1812. He argues that the chemical data shows much greater fluctuations of CO2 levels, with high levels occurring in 1825, 1857 and 1942, when carbon dioxide levels were more than 400ppm (compared to 386ppm in 2009). The fluctuations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere demonstrated by chemical analyses cast strong doubt on the IPPC’s assumption that the level of CO2 in 1750 (less than 280ppm) represents a preindustrial equilibrium which modern society has destroyed. This is a questionable assumption. Nature is not static but dynamic, non-linear and chaotic (as Professor Plimer has observed). .......
...While there is a deal that remains unknown about the quantities of carbon dioxide which are released naturally from the earth (for example, from submarine volcanoes), CO2 from all sources, together with nitrogen, methane and other gases contribute only 2 per cent of the greenhouse effect. ....
Finally, I am happy to stand by my claim that increases in carbon dioxide tend to follow rises in temperature, not cause them. Work on ice cores from Antarctica has shown that rises in CO2 levels follow rises in temperature, sometimes by as much as 200 to 800 years later. This makes sense, since warmer weather accelerates the release of carbon dioxide through increased weathering and the melting of ice (Plimer pp. 226-28, 424-25 & 448).
Thank you again for the opportunity to respond to the Bureau of Meteorology’s responses to your questions about my article. I would be happy to continue the discussion and to answer any further queries you might have.
With every good wish,
Yours sincerely,
From: St Augustine (Bishop of Hippo), as quoted by Martin Gardner in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science:
It very often happens there is some question as to the earth and sky, or other elements of this world ... respecting which one who is not a Christian has knowledge .. and it is very disgraceful and mischievous and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a Christian speaking of such matters as being according to Christian scriptures, should be heard by an unbeliever talking such nonsence that the unbeliever perceiving him to be as wide of the mark as east from west, can hardly restrain himself from laughing.
and in the present
The reply to Cardinal Pell at the Senate committee by Dr Greg Ayers, head of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, was described by the chairman as the best twenty minutes of Senate estimates hearings in years. An account of Pell's response was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Communicated by Andrew Nut. Waikikamukau, NZ.
Excise Australia Fair
09/09/12 21:13 Filed in: Moritz
There has been a poor reception for verse written in praise of special economic zones by Gina Rinehart, mining magnate, sponsor of Ian Plimer and Australia's richest woman. The topic deserves better and so we offer our update of Advance Australia Fair.
In special economic zones
Australians can be free
As long as they're the one that owns
And not an employee.
The land abounds in nature's gifts
That we don't wish to share.
As we advance, at every chance: Excise Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Excise Australia fair".
When Dampier from Albion sailed, For piracy and more
As British courage bore him on,
He reached our western shore. He left us with a legacy
As taught in English schools.
With all their faults, there's one we love:
"Britannia waives the rules".
In pirates' strains then let us sing "Excise Australia fair!"
Our forebears formed the IPA
To rail against the laws
That slow the rate that riches flow
Into our gaping maws.
But working piecemeal takes too long
To sweep them all away.
Declare that in your business place
Such laws do not hold sway.
In lawyers' strains then let us sing
"Excise Australia fair!"
It works with imigration zones
That redefine the lands
And leaves this Commonwealth of ours
Divided into bands.
For those who've come across the seas
To reach Australian shores
They find they're in Australia
But outside Australian laws.
In racist strains then let us sing,
"Excise Australia fair".
If foreign workers reach our coast,
With skills to lend a hand,
We'll seek the right to pay them less
Than natives of our land.
The markets then shall surely know,
Beyond wide ocean's roll,
That here in west Australia's land
We keep a pirate's soul.
In richer strains the let us sing
"Excise Australia fair!"
Of course Advance Australia Fair has itself been subject to excision, with two verses being extracted to become the Australian National anthem. There may yet be need for further excision in the verse containing.
For those who've come across the sea
we've boundless plains share.
(Formerly "boundless plains share" actually meant Baxter detention centre on the plains north of Port Augusta, but with re-opening of off-shore processing of claims for asylum, even this "figleaf" is disappearing.)
Britain has done the same sort of excision of God Save the Monarch to create the national anthem. However it is rumoured that Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, of the UK independence party is lobbying for reinstatement, reflecting his party's European policy, of the verse:
O Lord our God arise
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall
Confound their politics
Frustrate their knavish tricks
On Thee our hopes we fix
God save us all.
Moritz Lorenz. Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing, University of Narbethong, West Island Campus, NZ
In special economic zones
Australians can be free
As long as they're the one that owns
And not an employee.
The land abounds in nature's gifts
That we don't wish to share.
As we advance, at every chance: Excise Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Excise Australia fair".
When Dampier from Albion sailed, For piracy and more
As British courage bore him on,
He reached our western shore. He left us with a legacy
As taught in English schools.
With all their faults, there's one we love:
"Britannia waives the rules".
In pirates' strains then let us sing "Excise Australia fair!"
Our forebears formed the IPA
To rail against the laws
That slow the rate that riches flow
Into our gaping maws.
But working piecemeal takes too long
To sweep them all away.
Declare that in your business place
Such laws do not hold sway.
In lawyers' strains then let us sing
"Excise Australia fair!"
It works with imigration zones
That redefine the lands
And leaves this Commonwealth of ours
Divided into bands.
For those who've come across the seas
To reach Australian shores
They find they're in Australia
But outside Australian laws.
In racist strains then let us sing,
"Excise Australia fair".
If foreign workers reach our coast,
With skills to lend a hand,
We'll seek the right to pay them less
Than natives of our land.
The markets then shall surely know,
Beyond wide ocean's roll,
That here in west Australia's land
We keep a pirate's soul.
In richer strains the let us sing
"Excise Australia fair!"
Of course Advance Australia Fair has itself been subject to excision, with two verses being extracted to become the Australian National anthem. There may yet be need for further excision in the verse containing.
For those who've come across the sea
we've boundless plains share.
(Formerly "boundless plains share" actually meant Baxter detention centre on the plains north of Port Augusta, but with re-opening of off-shore processing of claims for asylum, even this "figleaf" is disappearing.)
Britain has done the same sort of excision of God Save the Monarch to create the national anthem. However it is rumoured that Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, of the UK independence party is lobbying for reinstatement, reflecting his party's European policy, of the verse:
O Lord our God arise
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall
Confound their politics
Frustrate their knavish tricks
On Thee our hopes we fix
God save us all.
Moritz Lorenz. Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing, University of Narbethong, West Island Campus, NZ
Friends of G&T censored
Lurking in the background for those of us writing parody is always Poe's law that states that it is impossible to write a parody that won't be taken as real by someone. On the other side is what we propose as Mitchell's law: that some bits of reality are so ridiculous that few can believe that they are not parody. This law is named for its exemplar, Chris Mitchell, editor of The Australian. Examples are the award to Mitchell from the mining industry, for excellence in environmental reporting and the editorial linking of the ICC and IPCC as reported here: IPCC linked to match fixing in test cricket.
These matters came to a head last weekend, when the online outlet for informed comment The Conversation, published an article on ENSO prediction by Stewart Franks.
Professor Franks is famous in Australia for two things. Firstly for being a scientific advisor for former senator Steve Fielding, helping the senator with what he had learned from the Heartland Institute (see FoGT post of Finally Free From Family First's Fraudulent Fuckwit Fielding for comments on the senator's retirement).
Secondly Franks with collaborators at the University of Newcastle is famous for his analysis of warming of the Murray Darling basin. ( Lockart, Kavetski and Franks Geophysical Research Letters , VOL. 36, L24405, 2009 doi:10.1029/2009GL040598). This used a biased sampling that, when applied to station latitude, would have the whole area moving north by 2.79 degrees in 58 years. This had been pointed out in a paper in ( Geophysical Research Letters ,VOL. 37, L10706, 2010 doi:10.1029/2009GL042254 ) by Cai, Cowan, Braganza, Jones and Risbey and reported by Friends of Gin and Tonic as Australian research agencies hide evidence for young earth.
In the comments to Franks' Conversation piece, one blogger posted our "young earth" article, only to have it suppressed by the moderator. More significantly as an example of Mitchell's law, when Andrew Glickson reported the same criticism, his comment was also suppressed.
Now it is not surprising that The Conversation suppressed the parody, not because such things are beneath their dignity, but, having done such things themselves as avoid the tyranny of Big Seatbelt as a parody of anti-vaccination arguments, they didn't want to draw attention to our competition.
The FoGT "young earth" piece linked two ideas. One was that the analysis by Franks and collaborators would imply rapid movement of SE Australia. The second is that this rapid change was sort of consistent with then-senator Fielding's professed view of a possibly young earth. The first part is true, the second part is parody, and not even numerically accurate. The Newcastle technique would have Australia moving so fast that the south might have been still attached to Antarctica while the north was first encountered by the Dutch in the 17th century and when Abel Tasman sailed south of what he called Van Diemen's land he would have been at great risk from icebergs.
In suppressing Glickson, The Conversation seemed to have succumbed to Mitchell's law and treated both parts of the FoGT piece as so ridiculous that they must be parody and assumed that Glickson must have been doing more of the same.
A less noble interpretation is that The Conversation were so embarrassed by having commissioned an article on statistical prediction of ENSO by someone responsible for such a statistical howler, that they tried to cover up Franks' past failure. This may also be why, when The Conversation published Franks' piece mis-representing Braganza and colleagues, their "disclosure of interest" failed to note that Franks' had had his statistical practice exposed to ridicule by Cai, Cowan, Braganza, Jones and Risbey. Maybe this is all just attention-seeking on the part of The Conversation, hoping to get themselves noticed by Media Watch.
For his part, Franks is understandably sensitive to ridicule - he has been a scientific advisor to Steve Fielding - how much more ridicule can one man be expected to take?
Prof Dr Moritz Lorenz.
Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing,
University of Narbethong,
West Island Campus, NZ
