There are several layers of argument in the climate debate.
1. Is there actually global warming, and if so, is it enough to cause concern?
2. If there is global warming, how much if any can be attributed to human activity?
3. If Yes to that question, is it (a) possible (b) necessary and (c) cost-effective for the human race to alter our activities to reduce the warming?
4. If Yes to the above, does it make sense for Australia to take the lead in reducing our standard of living?
The very first question is the extent of warming. Sophisticated commentators like Lomborg and Monckton are not denialists in the sense of denying that there is warming, the point is that they do not see that it is a serious threat and they don’t think that attempts to stop it necessary and certainly they are not are cost-effective.
This is Andrew Bolt’s report on the exent of warming in recent decades.
Sophisticated commentators like Lord Monckton?
Reports on temperature trends from Andrew Bolt?
This post is deep. Deep in doodah.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 8:50 am
1. No, not at the moment, the globe is cooling slightly as Argo proves,and no.
2. A negligible amount, as natural processes override the minor effects of any man-made influences.
3. N/A. But postulating a ‘yes’, (a) no, (b) no and (c) no.
4. Still N/A, but assuming a ‘yes’, no. NZ took such a ‘moral lead’. The greentards assured the NZ population that they would influence other nations yadda yadda, all the bullsh*t they are spouting here now. Seen any evidence of Peking paying any attention to Wellington’s supposed superior moral nobility? Thought not.
Everyone knows that there is a short-cycle jitter due to solar influence.
The greentards ignore the inconvenient truth that we are in an interglacial.
The worthless fools bray about imagined warming tipping points when the actual issue is what to do when the icecaps return and the sea level drops by up to 100 metres.
The greentards want sensible long term plans? Fine, establish self-sustaining human populations off this planet.
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 8:59 am
Stop glowball warmenating!
Burn coal.
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/008172.html
MarkL
brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 9:03 am
They’re reasonable questions, Rafe.
Obviously you are a denialist!
Paul Williams
9 Jul 11 at 9:07 am
Or such as yourself who ignore all of the existing and wasteful mitigation schemes which will have the ETS superimposed on top of them plus the fact that tariffs are more efficient than quotas?
Wow, your name in lights, hc.
.
9 Jul 11 at 9:11 am
Lombog???
boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 9:14 am
Yes, the point is to demonstrate just how far off the planet we are going when we say Yes to the fourth question.
Rafe
9 Jul 11 at 9:16 am
Harry’s had another long night on the toads.
boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 9:17 am
Seriously, is hc the Harry Clark at la Trobe? That is bandied about here a lot but his tone and sophistication is that of a 15 year old.
I have a genuinely hard time accepting that anyone with that level of education could be so fact-averse and undergraduate in his expressed views.
Mind you I have spent zero time at second string universities like la Trobe.
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 9:21 am
MarkL, I’m with you. No academic could be that puerile and stupid.
I hope.
boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 9:26 am
I don’t know MarkL.
That new Old-Timey snake handling religion has some powerful juju.
lotocoti
9 Jul 11 at 9:41 am
I apologize for my lack of competence. I am not up to the standards of those who learn about climate change from Andrew Bolt and Monckton.
The problem MarkL in your strident protestations is that your zany science is rejected by all bar a few old crazies with the emeritus disease. What are your credentials in climate science? Your theories are revolutionary – why not publish them in Nature and gain a Nobel Prize?
Of course the commies there would obstruct publication?
hc
9 Jul 11 at 9:44 am
Whoever hc is his day-time job isn’t important here. The gentle art of blogging is a conversation amongst all comers (more or less).
Sinclair Davidson
9 Jul 11 at 9:46 am
Harry, would you like to take up the wager that I proposed on Thursday night?
Not running away from a ‘dead cert’, are you?
Dandy Warhol
9 Jul 11 at 10:13 am
Australia contributes about I think 0.45% of global emissions so individually the effect on global emissions is small. That does not carry any more implication that it should not impose the tax than would the argument that I should be exempt from income taxes because my contribution is a negligible component of the total.
Providing for the global environment is a large group public good issue. Countries must share in the cost of meeting this objective.
Please no more of this fairly obvious stupidity Dandy.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 10:18 am
Keep talking hc
.
9 Jul 11 at 10:25 am
I’m serious Harry.
I would like you you to put your money where your mouth is.
Dandy Warhol
9 Jul 11 at 10:26 am
In case you’ve forgotten:
Dandy Warhol
9 Jul 11 at 10:30 am
The fact that Monckton or Mc Intyre can rip shreds of stuff, it shows what a bloody gin show it is.
You’re on your way pal.
.
9 Jul 11 at 10:32 am
You are a moron Dandy. I answered your point with the reason I would not accept your stupid wager and you missed it. The deaf, dumb and blind kid – can you play pinball?
hc
9 Jul 11 at 10:34 am
Yes, it’s hilarious how terrified of Monckton are Australia’s warmies. He causes them to poop their pants. Fair enough too. I mean, the Viscount ridiculously predicted that Perth and Brisbane would have to be abandoned. That’s how much of a scientist he is.
Oh wait – that was dinosaur expert, Virgin spokesman and warmening czar, Tim Flannery.
C.L.
9 Jul 11 at 10:36 am
Says the idiot who forgets lessons from trade economics, revels in blackboard economics and judges intelligence if whether or not lately you’ve punched numbers into a black box.
You will eat crow old man.
.
9 Jul 11 at 10:37 am
That’s a cutting edge reference from the 1960s, by the way.
Good one, Harry. You’re really with it, daddy-o.
C.L.
9 Jul 11 at 10:37 am
Oh wait – that was dinosaur expert, Virgin spokesman and warmening czar, Tim Flannery.
…and Panasonic air-conditioning sales rep.
Gabrielle
9 Jul 11 at 10:38 am
So Harry you are saying that we should impose a tax on our carbon dioxide emissions, which will reduce our standard of living, in the full knowledge that such a tax will not make a significant difference to climate change?
And you suggest we do this as part of our obligation to the globe?
Even when the most significant emitters of carbon dioxide – the US, the EU, Japan, China and India – are not doing the same?
Your ‘income tax’ analogy falls down – in this instance, we aren’t contributing a small part of the total. We will be contributing a major part – almost all – of the total, while everyone else ‘free rides’ off our contribution.
I suggest you’d be better off with another analogy – if you can find one.
Dandy Warhol
9 Jul 11 at 10:46 am
Yes, hc, that was a ridiculous analogy for the reasons Dandy suggests.
dover_beach
9 Jul 11 at 10:58 am
“Your ‘income tax’ analogy falls down – in this instance, we aren’t contributing a small part of the total. We will be contributing a major part – almost all – of the total, while everyone else ‘free rides’ off our contribution”.
That is factually incorrect.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 11:00 am
And Harry, even if the other countries do intend to tackle their carbon dioxide emissions – what is the sense in moving first, before they do? Wouldn’t it be better to move in convoy? Moving first without being able to make a significant dent in carbon dioxide emissions simply means that we lower our living standards for no benefit to anyone whatsoever.
Dandy Warhol
9 Jul 11 at 11:02 am
So we’re going to fuck all and everyone is going to be appreciative of that?
.
9 Jul 11 at 11:14 am
‘Global leadership’ is an experience good.
.
9 Jul 11 at 11:15 am
Anyone who thinks that emitting Carbon Dioxide is pollution is simply a moron – the earth’s surface biosphere is carbon based and it, humans included, oxidise carbon to obtain energy.
CAGW is pseudoscience as well, since it has never been observed requiring an explanation for it.
Louis Hissink
9 Jul 11 at 11:18 am
Global warming is a fact but it is a consequence of an increase in metatabolising life forms that generates the extra heat – CO2 in this context is a consequence of a prolific carbon based life form, and this is bad? A bit of basic physics and chemistry should enable most to dismiss CAGW as unmitigated, pseudsoscientific nonsense.
Louis Hissink
9 Jul 11 at 11:25 am
hc:
Actually, hc, the problem is your rejection of basic scientific method and of large volumes of work which either do not agree with the AGW hypothesis or which actually disprove it. Like Argo. Which was ironically funded as a method of PROVING AGW.
But the killer is the failure of the AGW hypothesis own predictions.
If the equatorial troposphereic hotspot ALL the models predict is not there, hc, AGW fails.
It’s not there.
All the warmy predictions for the ratio of warming to change in outgoing radiation – all 11 models – predicted a negative Earth radiation Budget Experiment ERBE trend.
All of them. Because in the view of the pro-AGW model makers, that ‘proved’ AGW to be true.
Actual field observations from satellite data found the ERBE trend to be positive. See Lindzen & Choi 92009) [paper available here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
Oops. Is this ‘the one piece of data that proves AGW faklse’? No, the field is so complex that the notion of an individual smoking gun is flawed. But it does prove that AGW proponents have been bullsh*tting us.
Are Lindzen and Choi – or the authors of the 900 papers who do not agree with AGW (see here:http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html)
“zany scientists”?
I think not, I think that’s just your mechanism to deny heresies to your warming cult beliefs. Oh, the pro-AGW reality deniers tried to smear them all with being in the pay of Exxon. Pity that Exxon actually gave more $$ to Greenpeace than to the authors of some of those papers…. so Greenpeace is in Exxon’s pocket, then?
Science degrees, scientific literacy, an open mind (used to be a warmy then I noted the perversion of scientific process they were perpetrating, and dug deeper) and an analytical disposition.(So I have more than Flannery and garnault – where’s my trough of government cash?)What are yours?
It’s revolutionary to look at the available facts, and data that has been known since the 1950s?
Crikey sport – that’s obviously ‘revolutionary’ to YOU, everyone else calls it ‘scientific method’. Been around since the Enlightenment.
Maybe you should catch up two thousand years on your world-view and get with the 16th century, you quaint old Aristotlean chap.
I am published in my field, thanks. Mostly, I an an historian. Tracking the history of this and all the similar enviroscams is fascinating.
Basically, you have revealed yourself as just another boring millenarian. No wonder you are terrified of Monckton!
It’s in trendy feel good crap like ‘peace prizes’ (normally awarded to buffoons like Obama or terrorists like arafat) that the Nobel Committee goes twisty and weird.
For actual hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biosciences, medicine etc) the Nobel Committee is quite good.
That’s why so many Jews get Nobels, of course, they are damned good at hard sciences. What, 159 Nobels to date?
MarkL
brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 11:34 am
Might be wroth repeating the defintion of the scientific method – Observation, Hypothesis, Testing.
CAGW has never been observed requiring a theory for it – it’s all about a guess of the future if we proceed along a particular direction. However, those malthusian guesses have never been right, but this has not stopped the usual suspects.
What did Einstein write? Insanity is the action of repeating the same process in the expectation of a different result.
Louis Hissink
9 Jul 11 at 12:13 pm
“…That does not carry any more implication that it should not impose the tax than would the argument that I should be exempt from income taxes because my contribution is a negligible component of the total…”
How about if everyone else paid a little bit, or none of their taxes, or even announced they would continue not to pay taxes till they made as much money as you?
See, I can use spurious analogies as well…
thefrollickingmole
9 Jul 11 at 12:14 pm
Meaning those responsible for 99.55% of global emissions are wetting themselves laughing.
boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 12:31 pm
Dribbler and bullshit artist
Tiny Dancer
9 Jul 11 at 12:55 pm
hello, hc??
tap tap..
is this thing still on?
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 1:21 pm
Harry, which other countries have decided to lower their living standards in order to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions?
Dandy Warhol
9 Jul 11 at 1:22 pm
lol. HC has turned his back to the computer and stuck fingers in ears, singing la la la la la.
Gabrielle
9 Jul 11 at 1:28 pm
Give him a break – the poor old dear thinks carbon dioxide is pollution.
He has a moral crisis every time he breathes.
Dandy Warhol
9 Jul 11 at 1:35 pm
heh!
Oh Louis, stop it with that zany, revolutionary science!
The earth is at the centre of a number of crystal spheres. HC says it is true because Aristotle said so and he’ll have you burned for heresy should you persist.
/greenie mimic function off
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 3:14 pm
MarkL of Canberra,
Ha – Gerard Henderson has an interesting Media report this week – seems our SD economists have problems discriminating facts from fiction.
Louis Hissink
9 Jul 11 at 4:18 pm
Saw that, Louis. Also noted similarities in terminology and structure between John Quiggin and hc.
Interesting.
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 5:09 pm
No MarkL I went and played golf. Had a good score too.
Dipping into shitty debates with climate change delusionists is a worthy pursuit but there are are other things in life.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 5:15 pm
Actually scientific method was around and accepted before the Enlightenment, so some of these people are less scientific than Bacon, for example.
wreckage
9 Jul 11 at 5:15 pm
climate change delusionists is a worthy pursuit
Thank goodness! I thought I was wasting my time.
wreckage
9 Jul 11 at 5:17 pm
Ah! I see.
Went shooting, myself (new scope to sight in). Over the next month or so friend is organising access to private land with a good population of delectable red deer, which are a Class 3 feral pest in QLD.
I knew there were many good reasons for moving here.
Now, my Aristotlean compadre, care to comment on Lindzen&Choi (2009) and the utter failure of the warmy ERBE models?
or on any of those 900-odd papers which take warmies to task?
And to enlighten me on your own scientific credentials?
Hmmm?
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 5:31 pm
No MarkL I will not. I am an economist not a scientist. But I place my scientific faith in the CSIRO and the IPCC not in the views of anonymous bloggers, Bolt, Carter, Plimer or Monckton. I respect the views of people who work and publish in the area of climate science and whose views are respected by mainstream scientists. I don’t think there is an intellectual conspiracy involved in mainstream climate science.
Lindzen seems to be the only respected climate scientist who sometimes expresses contrarian views. The rest seem to be emeritus geriatrics who make strong claims but do not enjoy the respect of their peers. But he is the single soldier in the regiment marching to that tune.
The 900 papers you mention are fiction.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 5:44 pm
Lindzen seems to be the only respected climate scientist who sometimes expresses contrarian views. The rest seem to be emeritus geriatrics who make strong claims but do not enjoy the respect of their peers. But he is the single soldier in the regiment marching to that tune.
Spencer? Christofides? Christy? Pielke Sr? Koutsoyannis? Fu? Curry? Klotzbach? Niyogi? Hubbard? Douglass? And so on. Seems to me that is more than a single soldier.
dover_beach
9 Jul 11 at 6:00 pm
How strange. I am reading through them now. Quite a few of the authors are ones I have come across in the Journals, too, which makes your claim rather suspect.
Again with the issue of faith. What on earth has that to do with anything?
The good thing about science is that one can verify.
So do so.
make up your own mind on your own readings.
If a claim is made, it has to be substantiated. Validate both. Recall that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.
The claims on cold fusion demanded such proof: and nobody else could replicate their results. So the claim was disproven.
Warmies make extraordinary claims and deny that verification is needed. That’s called ‘lying’ where I come from.
Remember that the IPCC is a political entity.
This is made tranparently clear in its own charter, and even the IPCC website says the following “The IPCC is an intergovernmental body. It is open to all member countries of the United Nations (UN) and WMO. Currently 194 countries are members of the IPCC. Governments participate in the review process and the plenary Sessions, where main decisions about the IPCC work programme are taken and reports are accepted, adopted and approved.”
If governments participate in review processes and plenary sessions, where main decisions are made, it’s a political body, not a scientific one.
Check the list of participating governments – note how many are mendicant states?
Concur on ‘conspiracy’, yet there is a commonality of interests and a common policy towards obtaining financial benefit.
Follow the money.
As for Lindzen being the “only” climate scientist, be aware that geologists are also climate scientists, paleoclimate is critical to their work. he is very far from being the only one, hc! Very far indeed.
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 6:02 pm
Gee, I find myself agreeing with hc. Well, the first paragraph anyway.
My only hesitation is with the term “emeritus geriatrics”. Perhaps it is significant that the sceptics are retired or late career scientists. A young scientist would destroy his or her career – and certainly get no research money – with any sceptical position.
Though I accept the consensus view, it bothers me – as it would in any field – that any dissent would mean career death.
I am trying to think of another field where the received truth is so strong. Even with evolution, it is not entirely beyond the pale to argue that acquired characteristics can be passed on, altho 99.9% of scientists in the field would say it’s nonsense.
hc, can you think of another issue like AGW where any dissent means you get your name written on an oyster?
ken n
9 Jul 11 at 6:04 pm
hc, have you followed the link MarkL provided?
Treering proxies are crap
Modelling predictions are poor
Major climate shifts that are not driven by CO2
Observation of radiative forcing
wreckage
9 Jul 11 at 6:11 pm
If you want an example of a field where there is an overwhelming consensus that is flatly wrong, try philosophy, specifically epistemology and the philosophy of science. The most important thinker in that field during the 20th century has practically disappeared from the texts in recent years, though his ideas have not been refuted, just garbled or ignored. As demonstrated by Deirdre McCloskey and Michael Williams it is apparently possible to spend a lifetime in academia without having a colleague or associate who can identify the gross misrepresentation of Popper’s ideas, on the odd occasions when they are cited. That just shows how closed the academic mainstream can get, not to mention the examples of gross dishonesty that have been demonstrated among so-called leading climate researchers.
Rafe
9 Jul 11 at 6:14 pm
There’s nothing like appealing to authority. If we all thought like you hc, we’d still believe that tension causes ulcers.
The 900 papers are not fiction.
When are you going to admit that a handful of leftist ‘scientists’ have betrayed their calling and hoodwinked willing governments into this AGW scam, because politicians love hearing that they have to curtail freedom by introducing useless tax that won’t fix the non-existent problem in any case.
I am a lawyer by trade, and determining truth based upon the rules of evidence is my business. Those rules have been developed over a thousand years and are by far the best tool we have to discover truth, in that they are not tied to orthodoxy like scientists inexorably are. And I believe that a court of law would dismiss AGW as a complete fallacy.
I believe we should have a royal commission into AGW, using the rules of evidence, and settle the question once and for all.
Rococo Liberal
9 Jul 11 at 6:14 pm
I wonder MarkL do you read the IPCC Assessment Reports?
As a non-scientist I find them hard going but I use them as reference points for particular information I seek.
The standards of scholarship – yes despite some very occasional errors – impress me. Very careful, non-propagandist and very, very cautious and conservative. The early sections of the technical report list all the areas where they don’t have answers.
I think reading the IPCC reports is more reasonable for you to read than for me to read a fringe literature.
You will do less harm to your own soul by reading these reports than shooting Bambi’s.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 6:24 pm
IPCC reports? Of course I read them.
What is fascinating about them is that the Summary Reports (the ones prepared by and for politicians) are nothing like the actual body of the report.
It’s a classic case of people hijacking a scientific process with a political overlay-process.
Then we have the obvious and blatant corruption of parts of the scientific process by people like the reprobates at the CRU.
Oh please grow up, I have been a conservationist my entire life. I have lost track of the acres of lantana and bitou bush I and others in the landcare groups have cleared. Once I got too old for that I started feral animal reduction via conservation hunting.
Every feral cat I shoot means scores or hundreds of native birds and small marsupials saved. Every feral pig I have shot means thousands of individual microfauna (lizards, insects) saved. Deer are just another feral, only tastier than most.
BTW, actual conservationists like me generally loathe and detest greenies.
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 6:44 pm
Yup. The Greens and the greens are confused little kiddies. Don’t shoot Bambi, I’m a member of PeTA!
They want us to be poor and live in a peaceable kingdom with harmless feral animals and vegan predators.
I’ve only just realised that they’re basically just furries or plushies.
.
9 Jul 11 at 6:47 pm
Aw, hc, why did you have to spoil it with that last line?
You were doing fairly well – for me anyway – until then.
ken n
9 Jul 11 at 6:48 pm
And what about the ‘consensus’ that Australia was settled on the basis of terra nullius; a hoax on the scale of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And yet the TN hoaxters have retained their six-figure taxpayer funded sinecures, when clearly they should be in jail.
Peter Patton
9 Jul 11 at 6:56 pm
on the greens and I’m a member of PeTA! there was a great web site called PEETA i.e. People Enjoy Eating Tastey Animals.
Michael Doughney actually registered the domain name peta.org in 1995 and created a website called “People Eating Tasty Animals”.
The site described itself as “a resource for those who enjoy eating meat, wearing fur and leather, hunting and the fruits of scientific research”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. Doughney, 263 F.3d 359 (4th Cir. 2001), was an important Internet trademark decision that Doughney lost.
Jim Rose
9 Jul 11 at 6:58 pm
Tom Schelling is a genius at problem definition. He asked this at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/GreenhouseEffect.html
Jim Rose
9 Jul 11 at 7:35 pm
People don’t understand that plants at current atmospheric CO2 spend their entire time trying very hard not to starve to death. Photosynthesis does not work at all well at the current concentrations; plants would prefer double.
wreckage
9 Jul 11 at 7:49 pm
“You will do less harm to your own soul by reading these reports than shooting Bambi’s”.
Sorry KN and MarkL that was in fact humour.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 8:02 pm
Correct, wreckage!
IIRC, at circa 230ppmv, woody plants can no longer extract sufficient CO2 to manufacture cellulose, and we lose the woody trees.
Welcome to grassworld!
Commerical growers use up to 3500ppmv in greenhouses. Plants love the additional CO2, adn teh atmosphere is currently very impoverished in CO2.
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 8:04 pm
I prefer drowning kittens.
Boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 8:09 pm
In acid, I hope!
We RWDB have to maintain standards, y’know.
Besides, the odds are truly on the side of the deer getting clean away, let me tell you. But even then, I get to spend a day in the bush, watching the native animals, hearing the silence and seeing beautiful and extraordinary things. Few weeks back, very high country, an ice-mist pre-dawn, extremely cold, and these huge spiderwebs were outlined in incredibly delicate frost.
Quite amazing.
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
9 Jul 11 at 8:16 pm
Plus, death in the wild is brutal and prolonged. Give me a bullet anyday.
wreckage
9 Jul 11 at 8:21 pm
Jeez you guys are a humourless lot!
In fact I strongly approve of shooting ferals so I hope you got a Bambi MarkL.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 8:27 pm
“Sorry KN and MarkL that was in fact humour.”
With you hc, it is getting very difficult to tell. Can I suggest that you don’t try to do funny? You really can’t pull it off. Don’t do nasty either – stick to the rational manner and tone you use on your own blog.
ken n
9 Jul 11 at 8:34 pm
Do you know the meaning of “gratuitous” KN?
hc
9 Jul 11 at 8:42 pm
Yep, means “free”. Related to “gratuity” and (I think) “gracious”.
Why do you ask?
ken n
9 Jul 11 at 8:44 pm
I’m not humourless. I laugh out loud as the cute little kittens struggle for air.
Boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 8:50 pm
If they struggle for air, the acid is not strong enough.
wreckage
9 Jul 11 at 9:21 pm
I don’t think they are feeling the acid because I set them on fire first.
Boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 9:26 pm
Wreckage and Boy on a Bike. The psychopaths of Catallaxy.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 9:28 pm
“Well, Clarice – have the lambs stopped screaming? “
Boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 9:31 pm
I wish I had the energy to give hc a Hannibal Lecture.
wreckage
9 Jul 11 at 9:35 pm
“I believe we should have a royal commission into AGW, using the rules of evidence, and settle the question once and for all.”
LOL. Difficult to believe someone who claims to be a lawyer could say something so incredibly misguided and impractical. Perhaps guys in line for counsel assisting, or other associated hangers on, but not any lawyer without a direct financial interest.
BBB
Bingo Bango Boingo
9 Jul 11 at 9:36 pm
hc: My lifetime record of cat rescues would be around 20, I imagine, although much of that was in my youth. Only two outright rescues in the past few years.
Sorry to ruin the vibe.
wreckage
9 Jul 11 at 9:42 pm
No you didn’t ruin the vibe wreckage. I didnt ever think anything positive about you so nothing was ruined. You find it humorous to think about schemes for torturing animals. You articulated several techniques. The blogosphere picks up weirdos but you sound a bit dangerous to me.
hc
9 Jul 11 at 10:02 pm
Pussy.
Boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 10:41 pm
Meow.
Boy on a bike
9 Jul 11 at 10:42 pm
lol. This has to be the funniest thread ever.
Gabrielle
9 Jul 11 at 11:10 pm
Re hc on Andrew Bolt on temperature trends:
Here are the trends for Australia 1948-2010:
y = 0.0048x + 13.598
R² = 0.1268
That is, 0.0048 oC p.a., 0.048 per decade, and if projected, 0.48 by 2048. Terrifying? hardly, certainly not in my Canberra or hc’s Melbourne, where it would on the whole be welcome, and certainly not noticeable in Darwin.
But what about the trend in the year on year on year changes, surely that must be accelerating?
Well, er, no:
y = -0.0006x + 0.0332
R² = 0.0015
It’s actually falling, perhaps towards a tipping point for the next ice age?
But then hc has never shown any grasp of basic statistics.
Tim Curtin
9 Jul 11 at 11:42 pm
You articulated several techniques.
Before we continue, do we agree that anything I say must be a sincere statement of intent OR reflect a, perhaps unconscious, desire on my part?
wreckage
10 Jul 11 at 12:05 am
‘Before we continue…’
Errr….no.
hc
10 Jul 11 at 2:57 am
What happened between 10.02 pm and 2.57 am hc? A lot of buggery?
Tiny Dancer
10 Jul 11 at 10:37 am
Buggery?!!?
I am sure that hc and Bobby the Brown-hatter are just fellow travellers!
Kumbaya, etc
MarkL
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
10 Jul 11 at 11:10 am
SO, hc, you’ve agreed to shut up when I’m talking?
wreckage
10 Jul 11 at 4:33 pm
[...] don’t usually pick on Catallaxy. But I couldn’t resist pointing to this post where Rafe Champion describes Lord Monckton as a “sophisticated commentator”, and the rest of the crew pile in to defend him against the lone commenter pointing out the obvious [...]
John Quiggin » What can you say?
14 Jul 11 at 6:52 am
MORE COMEDY FROM THE CATALLAXIAN PARALLEL UNIVERSE
hc said all that was really should have been needed in the first comment on this thread, but of course that prompted the usual unhinged Catallaxian response. As Quiggin nicely sums up:
The troll formerly known as Tom N.
14 Jul 11 at 1:17 pm
Tommy:
Funny, but I always thought the same thing about you. Have you thought about alternative employment after the next election.
Here’s my open bet, Tom.
After the Libs thumping victory, you will not be posting these sorts of comments on blogs because you lack any courage and fear what could happen… if you know what I mean.
You wanna take the bet?
JC
14 Jul 11 at 1:23 pm
Ken N:
This is rubbish. If someone does genuine research, with a sincere effort to understand what is going on, there will be no problem. For starters, it is pretty unlikely that any such work would undermine the status quo in any meaningful way, as the current understanding is pretty robust.
The “career death” will only exist for those who enter the fray determined to prove that AGW is wrong. It is, of course, just as bad to attempt to prove that AGW is right. Anyone should go in with the attitude that they are trying to find out what is happening. I think the “establishment” climate scientists have shown that AGW is real, and are now trying to understand it better. I hope they don’t have blinkers on.
John Brookes
14 Jul 11 at 1:28 pm
“Sophisticated commentators like Lomborg and Monckton”
For my satire I normally go the theonion.
http://www.theonion.com/
But even their coverage seems a little more serious than this post.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-global-warming-issue-from-2-or-3-years-ago,18431/
Clearly I’m looking in the wrong place.
charles
14 Jul 11 at 8:34 pm
“IPCC reports? Of course I read them.”
LOL
Jarrah
17 Jul 11 at 11:54 pm
“Sophisticated commentators like Lomborg and Monckton”
Ha ha ha.
You forgot Noddy and Big Ears.
Gaz
18 Jul 11 at 5:34 pm
If you want an example of a field where there is an overwhelming consensus that is flatly wrong,
AND …
the modularity hypothesis of the brain – crap and and still widely entertained.
Larmarckian style inheritance – now unequivocally proven but only a decade ago regarded as heresy.
Selfish Gene – complete bollocks.
Mental illness is caused by “chemical imbalance – bollocks.
CNS is an immune privileged site – rubbish
Central Dogma of DNA – now proven wrong but they’ll keep writing it in textbooks for another decade. Genes do not encode specific proteins, hundreds if not thousands of proteins can arise from a single gene.
The Food pyramid – nonsense.
Man the Toolmaker – even fish use tools.
Only humans have self awareness – crap.
Copenhagen Interpretation – now largely abandoned.
Alcohol is good for you. Crap, the effect is so marginal that relying on a statistical analysis to justify alcohol consumption for all and sundry is nonsense. Eg. Many Asians carry an allele of A. hydrogenase that lowers degradation rate of alcohol.
The invisible hand – proof that economists believe in fairy tales.
John H.
18 Jul 11 at 6:13 pm
I’m trying to get a “skeptic” to put their finger in front of a CO2 laser and we could get video proof that CO2 doesn’t interact with infrared. It’ll kill the scientists claims dead. http://galahs.blogspot.com/2010/04/carbon-dioxide-laser.html
How about some of you guys? John H?
DaveMcRae
24 Jul 11 at 3:00 pm