In case you were wondering about the weather. You don’t live in Sydney? Tough! Is that my fault?
EU Carbon Price hits a new low.
LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters Point Carbon) – EU carbon prices hit a fresh record low on Thursday as poor economic data from Germany and relatively healthy supply of coal continued to force European power and coal prices lower.
In related news, California says they aren’t going to get involved in Australia’s carbon Market via any price linkages.
Green energy stocks in Australia.
On the bright side, bush ticks hate the heat.
The infernos that Greens create by preventing proper bush maintenance.
Dr Christine Finlay, who completed a PhD in bushfire research at the University of NSW in 2005, said the recent spate of bushfires in NSW could have been prevented if authorities had adopted a tougher burn-off policy.
“They should have been cool-burning in winter, when it was safe to do so, to reduce fuel loads,” she told AAP on Monday.
Dr Finlay also questioned whether prescribed burns had actually reduced fuel loads and whether NSW authorities had miscalculated their response to the recent firestorm.
“It’s just this massive domino effect of miscalculations, set up in a miscalculated way so that the catastrophe happens,” Dr Finlay said.
The researcher was also critical about the spread of national parks.
Another warning, see the chapter on Forests in the Critique of Green policies.
Clear a fire break in WA and go to gaol.
Leading alarmist Hansen concedes that the thermometer has stuck for some years.
And the British Mets find much the same but they keep it cool.
In case you have not noticed how the IPCC does business (for new Cats). Laframboise on the bias and malpractice in the political world of climate “science”.
Great Product Names, off topic but too good to languish deep in an open thread that will be left behind this evening. Thanks sdfc!
I nearly fell out of bed when i heard on TV someone talk about “Friday’s heatwave”.
Quick! Get the Macquarie Dictionary, it’s time to update!
The Beer Whisperer
18 Jan 13 at 1:20 pm
Don’t forget Germany!
European Climate Institute:
“Climate In Germany Has Been Cooling For 15 Years”!
handjive
18 Jan 13 at 1:24 pm
Dr Christine Finlay sums up the problem
The researcher was also critical about the spread of national parks.
“Australia’s new trend to turn as much forest and grassland as possible into national parks is very dangerous,” she said.
“They constitute Australia’s biggest firestorm.”
Dr Finlay said Australia needed to rethink its relationship with the bush.
“(Authorities) need to change their policy drastically. It’s a kind of sentimental thing about nature being allowed to run national parks,” she said.
“Appointing nature as their emergency manager, and their imaginary adviser, is not working.”
“Aborigines – barefoot, semi-naked, not even a box of matches – had the bushfire problem solved.
“Why does it just keep getting worse and worse and worse?”
OldOzzie
18 Jan 13 at 1:33 pm
Rafe,
If it’s any consolation, it’s a balmy 39 degrees here in the ‘ville.
Looxury!
Rabz
18 Jan 13 at 1:46 pm
Rabz, the good news is that the barometer has been dropping steadily and a few clouds are appearing. Hopefully it will cool down a bit before drinkies this evening.
For interstate readers, today is the 10th anniversary of the Canberra bushfires, which wiped out 500 houses in an afternoon and damaged the Mt Stromlo observatory. The weather was very much like it is today – very hot with strong westerlies. However, at least we do not have bushfires that have been allowed to burn unchecked around the edges of town to worry about. Stay safe, people. I hear the news from Gippsland is not good, and Coonabarabran is also a worry.
johanna
18 Jan 13 at 2:23 pm
It’s a vicious circle – greenies make bush fires worse, then blame global worming. Shit, just as I’m typing, channel 7 refers to today’s temperatures as “near record heat wave” FFS.
The Beer Whisperer
18 Jan 13 at 2:40 pm
Thanks Jo – weather app has just indicated it’s reached 40 degrees, so here’s hoping it does cool down before beer o’clock…
Rabz
18 Jan 13 at 3:15 pm
Today’s Sydney (and Canberra’s) maximum is an all-time high. Proof positive of AGW Climate Change. I think this spells the death knell of skepticism and denialism. Thank heavens for that – now the world can concentrate on getting carbon emissions down without the distracting noise from the likes of The Australian, Bolt, Nova, Watts and Monckton.
hammygar
18 Jan 13 at 4:28 pm
Kero
Not one of your best hoaxes. This one is really pathetic.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 4:30 pm
You know I’m correct, JC. I’ll bet even Bolt will slink quietly when he’s back full time. Of course today’s temperature records are not good news, but they will be a positive if they achieve the silencing of the fools.
hammygar
18 Jan 13 at 4:45 pm
Kero
You’re complaining of record high temps. Here’s a google search of record low temps in the “news” section. The very first page. Go check out the 6500 odd other entries and come back to me.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 4:48 pm
Canberra’s high was not an all-time record, doofus. It was a record for January. There have been higher temperatures in other months.
Besides, given the BOM’s crappy record-keeping and sleazy history of adjusting temperatures decades later to fit their models, I would take anything they say with a huge block of salt.
johanna
18 Jan 13 at 4:53 pm
Here’s another two pages, Kero.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 4:55 pm
Just how far back do the Canberra temp records extend, Hammy? Do you have a link to show the records? Can’t find much on BOM as records only seem to go back a few years.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 4:59 pm
You simply can’t go past the record today in Sydney. It’s .6% above the previous all-time high.
I’m feeling uncomfortably hot, but nevertheless elated. This great victory against denialists is a great New Year’s gift to humanity. The more you guys lose of course the angrier you become. I like to see your anger. Means humanity is winning.
The only downside I can see is that we’re pretty close to the dangerous tipping point.
hammygar
18 Jan 13 at 5:03 pm
The Greens have corrupt and stupid policies. Actually, hammygar is quite similar, except he’s too dumb to make Parliament.
Temperatures strangely always rise to great heights in the summer.Perhaps hambone could explain this phenomenon for us. After all he seems to think he knows things.
Is he a closet Greenie, a Bobbie Brown disciple?
I guess we shall have to wait for a few more installments of his drivel to find out.
Hubert East
18 Jan 13 at 5:06 pm
Kero, Tipping point? You’re not going to light to match today are you.
Think of the neighbors of record hot day.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 5:07 pm
It reached 42.7C at our place on the coast in Newcastle at 2pm, however the barometer is dropping and the wind direction has swung now from NW to SW. It was brutal outdoors earlier in the day, storm clouds are building, no bushfires locally. Tomorrow’s temperature predicted to be 24C.
Summer in Australia.
mareeS
18 Jan 13 at 5:07 pm
Well, yes you can seeing as the BOM records today’s max. temp for Sydney at 45.1degC. Not a record at all.
No, it’s not. The previous max temp recorded at the BOM for Sydney was 45.3degC and that was 14th January 1939. Maths not your strong suit at all.
Liars always do.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 5:10 pm
Pretty hard to argue with the hottest Sydney day on record.
But JC tries anyway, as if posting a bunch of extreme low temperatures helps his argument at all. What JC fails to grok is that AGW is about climate change, not just hot climate. AGW presages more extreme temperatures both hot and cold, not just extremely hot, so all those record lows he posts are actually evidence of AGW.
What a moron JC is.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 5:13 pm
Yes, back in 1939 it was the hottest day on record, Still is.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 5:16 pm
Er no, Gab, the high today at the Observatory Hill station (i.e. the city of Sydney) was 45.8C at 2.55pm. You were probably looking at this page which only records observations every 30 minutes. Check out the listing in the high temp column of this page for the real high.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 5:18 pm
You;ve given me the same link twice.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 5:20 pm
No I haven’t, Gab.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60901/IDN60901.94768.shtml
http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/observations/sydney.shtml
Two different URLs.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 5:22 pm
Rafe’s link (scroll down page) shows the recorded max at 46 degrees. Let’s not argue about tenths of degrees. It was the hottest ever by a big margin.
I reckon Bolta is about to do a Lance Armstrong and admit the failure of his denialist credo with a day or so of resuming full time.
Yes a great day for humanity!
hammygar
18 Jan 13 at 5:23 pm
Okay, now I see it. 45.8 Holy shot! You;re right. That’s a new record! Wow, only taken 74 years.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 5:23 pm
Who is fat boy? It simply a pointer that the thermostat has hit records around the same time on the other side of zero in other parts of the world, you doughnut globbling idiot.
My argument is two fold fat boy. 100 odd year of temps is nothing. It’s a microscopic statistical blip. But there are also record being made elsewhere.
That’s convenient. When it’s hot it’s global warming. When it’s record cold, it’s climate change. Fuck off fat boy.
Pressages? LOl… Monst, you failed first year Monsah economics. Stop trying to sound smarter than you really are because it oozes through the comment.
Says you.
Fuck off monst.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 5:24 pm
Isolated peaks prove nothing. Lighten up fellas, the peaks are uncomfortable but relax and welcome warming!
A couple of extra degrees and more CO2 will green the planet. Don’t think we are going to get it in less than a hundred years though, even on the trend before it slowed down. Dang!
Poor Old Rafe
18 Jan 13 at 5:25 pm
Bet?
1000 bucks 10:1 no tears.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 5:25 pm
oops… Why is that…
JC
18 Jan 13 at 5:26 pm
Are you a blonde bimbo? 1939 record was 45.3, today;s record was 45.8deg.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 5:26 pm
JCs getting very angry. Sweet victory, mOnty! How sweet it is.
hammygar
18 Jan 13 at 5:26 pm
LOL. Don’t believe so, that would mean he takes what you and monty say seriously. Don’t believe he does.
LOL you’ve gone back to your vaudeville act. Good.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 5:29 pm
Kero
I’m not in the slightest bit angrified. I’m actually a very calm well balanced gentleman.
You made a prediction which I believe to be wrong and would like to bet on it. it’s a 10:1 bet your favor. Surely you can’t pass up the opportunity.
And do yourself a favor, don’t align yourself with Fat boy as it’s not in your long term interest to be considered his “equal”.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 5:30 pm
That’s the basic theory of AGW, JC you blithering fool. More extreme extremes because of the extra energy in the system, that’s a central part of the science. Thanks for supporting the AGW point.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 5:30 pm
Bullshit. The IPCC does not say that at all.
The extreme weather meme (which the IPCC also says isn’t happening) is just desparation stuff from non-scientist greenslime, because warming isn’t happening to plan.
Question: what evidence would disprove the AGW hypothesis?
Greenslime answer: none.
Lazlo
18 Jan 13 at 5:30 pm
The media are over-blowing the heat and fires in some parts of the country, the ABC usually following with some reference to the Greens or climate change.
In fact, according to the satellite records, the southern hemisphere has experience little warming since 1979 and the tropics none at all.
manalive
18 Jan 13 at 5:31 pm
Like a brigadier commanding a platoon of infantry in olden times, Rafe calls his troops to abandon forward positions and fall back to the rear. “To me!” he cries, turning tail and running for his life.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 5:34 pm
Whatever loony story floats your boat, monty.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 5:36 pm
Why are all these imbeciles talking about the Australian warm summer as global warming while when I read stuff about the record low spells in the northern Hem, it’s about “climate change”.
Fatboy, if the theory is correct, the actual extremities ought to be less, not more you supersized dickhead. The theory is that we see a move toward convergence from the extremities to equator. You get less extremes with convergence, not more!
It ought to mean less records being made in the winter lows.
But unlike you I don’t take account of one temp in one city and call it evidence of climate change.
Fatboy, trying to sound aggressive doesn’t really do it for you. It’s an art.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 5:41 pm
On no, fatboy is now going all metaphorical on us. He tried that the other day too, which was hysterically funny because it made him look more of an idiot.
What’s the problem here, monst? You afraid that if the tide rises you will find it hard to run uphill to higher ground? If you are, get a reinforced Seway.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 5:45 pm
merimbula has 4 or 5 little soup-cup helicopters
fighting fires as I write..
just think if 1 percent of the NBN dollars were put toward effective water-bombing aircraft…
hzhouswife
18 Jan 13 at 5:45 pm
It’s the same thing. The climate as a whole heats up, i.e. global warming; there is more energy in the system, so more extreme weather results both hot and cold, i.e. climate change.
Clearly, JC, you have no idea what you’re talking about whatsoever. AGW is not about convergence. You shouldn’t even be appearing in this thread, such is the enormity of your galloping ignorance.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 5:56 pm
Guys & gals its a pretty clear example of a blocking high in the Tasman if anyone bothered to look at the synoptic chart.
Blocking also is stronger and more common when the Sun is quiet, and she hasn’t been this quiet for a couple of centuries. More detail here (I’m not going reproduce a long sciency post with lots of links just for historical ignoramuses like m0nty and Hammy).
So if you are seeing a record high temperature like me, consider that the last time we had the Sun in the current state was something like 230 years ago.
Bruce
18 Jan 13 at 6:04 pm
Nope, it’s not the same thing at all.
If the climate heats up we shouldn’t be seeing record low temps then as a counter to Kero Boy’s evidence of a hot spell in one Australian city even in terms of matching duration.
If Kero wants to use very short term temps as evidence, it’s disproven by record low temps in the northern winter.
Yes it is, fatboy. The theory is expressly about that. It’s the tending towards temp convergence from the poles to equator. This is why the theory suggests the poles will warm more than the equator.
Saying I’m ignorant, doesn’t make what you say correct, Fat boy. You adhere to a theory you don’t even understand. Go eat a bag full and come back and apologize.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 6:06 pm
And what about last summer on the NSW Central Coast- 3 days above 35 deg IIRC. Cool summer, warm summer and it all evens out to no detectable change.
Biota
18 Jan 13 at 6:22 pm
What on earth are you up to, Hammy? No good boy-o, to be sure.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
18 Jan 13 at 6:23 pm
At last, decent summer weather on Nth coast NSW, just like when I was a boy.
Helicopter operators love summer, pissy monsoon buckets at $1200 /hr for B206 types to $2300 /hr for the Squirrels.
Alfonso
18 Jan 13 at 6:36 pm
And a special mention for m0nty for this piece of drivel.
m0nty – There is this thing called the 1st law of thermodynamics. If the climate as a whole heats up then the temperature must rise. Temperatures globally are not rising they are falling. Therefore you have just managed to disprove global warming. This is what we in science call falsification of a hypothesis, which you just did. Congratulations!
Bruce
18 Jan 13 at 6:38 pm
Well for my money global warming has become a dead issue.
What is new on the science front?
Nobody in the world appears to be doing anything effective to cut CO2 output, even if it matters which I doubt (except by substituting cheaper gas for coal where available).
Australia’s effort are not only irrelevent to the world scene but they will not reduce CO2 and they will do it (whatever they do) with great waste of money – massive opportunity costs – meaning lost opportunities to do worthwhile things with the money.
The political process has been put under strain, with money wasted in vast quantities (for years to come).
There are real issues to be addressed, freedom of speech, productivity, personal responsibility in place of the nanny state, education instead of indoctrination in schools, the state of our transport and health infrastucture.
And we go on and on about the weather.
Poor Old Rafe
18 Jan 13 at 6:39 pm
http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/observations/sydney.shtml
I call shenanigans, check Bankstown, highest temperature 46.1 at 03:28 PM but if you click through to the half-hourly readings you see there was a long period of flat temperature around 44.5 at the time, so somehow this lone measurement pops up at two degrees hotter?!?
Check Syd Airport, same, check Camden, same.
Something dodgy happening here, these “record breakers” are not comparable with historical measurement.
Let’s see the BOM justify this, because the readings look decidedly sus to me.
Tel
18 Jan 13 at 6:41 pm
1. Japan basically left the system
2. Europe is talking about building new coal plants and actually becoming even more dependent on coal.
3. Russia said it’s leaving the system
4. the US is going with gas.
Hey but Australia has a 23 buck pwice on carbin in order to save the world. Lol.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 6:42 pm
M0nty – ” the climate as a whole heats up….”
It’s a toss up whether to laugh or cry when you read such scientific stupidity.
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 6:43 pm
Rafe, the CO2 issue is a trojan horse either to establish a new taxation revenue source, or if I read the tea leaves correctly, an updated version of the 1930′s technocracy movement proselytised by M. Hubbard King (he of Peak Oil Fame) as a solution to avoid having another Great Depression, by replacing the money system with some other sort of intermediary exchange item, probably electronic and based on energy consumption/production.
The fixation over the weather does serve one purpose – as a magnificently successful diversion.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 6:45 pm
Climate can’t heat up M0nty, only the atmosphere can. Climate is an abstract term but only in la-la leftyland does it heat up.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 6:48 pm
Leading alarmist Hanson and British Mets finally concede that the Global thermometer has been stuck for years, as REAL temperatures reveal the nonsense of IPCC’s Global temperature manipulations and their deceitful computer models, that support IPCC’s money making, power grabbing CAGW hoax.
Clear a fire break in WA and go to gaol reveals how much the Greens are responsible for bushfires.
EU carbon tax hits a real low as the world and investors wake up to the reality of a power grabbing carbon trading, easy money industry, pretending to be a good global citizen.
Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end for the CAGW industry and its wannabe rich, deceitful and dumb followers.
Think of the wasted $ billions and for what? CO2 is not the problem CAGW is.
terrarious
18 Jan 13 at 6:53 pm
“The fixation over the weather does serve one purpose – as a magnificently successful diversion.”
Yes I should have said that, it has diverted a lot of our time and energy away from the real issues including the push to subvert nation states, rule of law and classical liberalism in the interests of a socialist agenda driven by agencies like the IPPC. I blame the philosophers!
Poor Old Rafe
18 Jan 13 at 6:56 pm
m0nty – the atmosphere can heat up. The oceans, a rock and your ballbag can heat up. They have mass and a thermal conductivity although in your case not much for the last example. The climate does not.
Stick to the yartz. Your wouldn’t go close to passing primary school science.
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 6:56 pm
If pretend CAGW wasn’t a way to limit human material progress and enforce ‘necessary’ poverty….the left would not give a stuff. Which is why they hate nuc generation for other reasons, it interferes with compulsory poverty and we couldn’t have that.
Alfonso
18 Jan 13 at 7:13 pm
Very interesting comments, Bruce.
What puzzles me is why China does nothing when its Beijing citizens gasp for breath? Even London acted
to stop their population suffocating from pea-soup fog.
hzhouswife
18 Jan 13 at 7:33 pm
For many catastrophic global warming/climate change/climate disruption etc.has become their lifestance or Weltanschauung, quoting Richard Lindzen “… there are the numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue For them, their psychic welfare is at stake …”.
It’s being peddled in schools — a whole generation has been indoctrinated and many future careers depend on it.
It’s not over until the lawsuits, sackings and prison sentences have been dealt with.
manalive
18 Jan 13 at 7:45 pm
Rafe, how times have changed. in 2008, even the Republican Party presidential nominee supported cap-and-trade.McCain had a strong legislative record. He introduced a bill with Joe Lieberman to introduce carbon trading in 2003. It lost.
In a March 2008 speech, McCain called for a “successor to the Kyoto Treaty” and a cap-and-trade system” that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner.”
In January 2010, the Pew Research Center asked Americans to rank the importance of twenty-one issues. Climate change came last.
After winning the fight over health care, another issue for which polling showed weak support, Obama moved on to the safer issue of financial regulatorn. Five republican senators would have voted for cap and trade in April 2010: Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown and George LeMieux.
Many others including McCain soften or reversed positions as voter support waned as the recession depended.
CO reduction action will be limited to modest reductions of a token character.
There are many expressive voting concerns that politicians must balance to stay in office and the environment is but one of them. Once climate change policies start to actually become costly, expressive voting support for these policies falls away.
Jim Rose
18 Jan 13 at 7:51 pm
Yeah right Bruce, yet another “skeptic” cherrypicking data to pretend the long term trend is not upwards. It’s called the Escalator. It’s a simple denialist con, very easily seen through.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 8:03 pm
Rafe,
Philosophically our camp will always be a small one. I once asked John Ray whether leftism is hardwired into humans as left versus right side brain phenomena. He didn’t know of any scientifically conducted studies so there is no answer to it but given that lefties are emotion driven, one suspects this to be the case. Hence all the philosophical insights will never change them.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 8:03 pm
Monty, the upward trend is simply the earth RETURNING to the MWP climate state. Wake me up when it has, and if the temperatures continue to rise afterwards, then we might have a problem.
All your side are doing is expressing horror that a near frozen human being recovering back to his normal temperature is doing a bad thing.
Heavens sake you lot are thick as planks.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 8:10 pm
The carbon price, that is what is a dead issue. Despite constant bleating from the Libs and you lot up to predictions of Whyalla disappearing from creation, it had a vanishingly small effect on the Australian economy. The only significant downward effect it has had is on the Coalition 2PP and Abbott’s net approval rating, as the campaign of deliberate and knowing lies has been hopelessly exposed.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 8:15 pm
“It’s a vicious circle – greenies make bush fires worse, then blame global worming (I presume you meant warming, but maybe not).
The idea of telling lies for the “greater good” is a long established practice, but would they go as far as to desire the disasters that occur Because they enforce their preferred Climate narrative? Would they know what a likely outcome of their activism could be, and would they pursue that end regardless because it helped with an even bigger cause (regardless of the cost to innocent people)? There’s a lot of nasty money and people backing the globalist agenda within which Climate-Change plays a key role in forcing Sovereign States to conform to an agenda outside of their control but within the control of singularly undemocratic forces.
paul
18 Jan 13 at 8:15 pm
Louis, Greens are modern manifestations of 19th century British Tory Radicals.
the Greens mouth the same prejudices of Trollope’s Tory squires: attacking any further expansion of industry and commerce as impossibly vulgar, because it was ‘ecologically unfair to their pheasants and wild ducks’.
The 19th century Tory radical’s disdain for the habits of their inferiors is undiminished in their 21st century heirs. Like 19th century Tory Radicals, the greens see the uneducated, untutored middle classes as the true enemy:
Environmentalists have “aristocratic” vision of a stratified, terraced society in which the knowing ones would order society for the rest of us.
environmentalists gravitate toward bureaucrats and hippies: a global, big-brother government that will keep the middle classes in line and toward a back-to-the-earth localism, imposed on others but presenting no threat to the elites’ comfortable lives and supply of dope.
How ironic it is that the Greens—progressives against progress—resemble nineteenth-century conservatives.
HT: http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_american-liberalism.html
Jim Rose
18 Jan 13 at 8:15 pm
m0nty – Don’t be an idiot. You have seen the many times I have posted the sinusoidal fit to HadCRUT. It is sinusoidal because of the 60 year cycle, which has flipped to the down phase in the last few years.
I cannot fit a sine curve to the data at that website or I would have done so. When you are in the rising phase the trend line goes up. When you are at the top it goes flat. When in the falling phase…well you can work it out.
Furthermore the last solar cycle which peaked in 2005 was the most active for 230 years. This new solar cycle is the weakest for over 200 years. Ocean cycles are now going down and the solar forcing is now going down. Temperature is going down. UK Met Office has now noticed the ocean cycles (note the paragraphs about the PDO and AMO) and NASA GSFC has last week noticed the Sun. All it will take is the one to talk with the other and the whole CAGW industry will go squeak and die.
Bruce of Newcastle
18 Jan 13 at 8:18 pm
Jim, Tory radicals? Hmm Babbage, Scrope, and Lyell – they were Whigs, but I had not encountered tory radicals – actually that belief also existed in Europe, especially among the German environmentalists of the time and which led to their experiment with national socialism reconnecting with the land. But I had not realised that the Greens had also an English antecedent.
This calls for a bit of water contaminated spirit.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 8:24 pm
Hzh – thanks. Beijing unfortunately is built where they have temperature inversions often. They are working to control the pollution problem. But because the Chinese people are becoming richer they can afford more stuff, so pollution-wise they are running as fast as they can to stay in one spot. They’ll catch up eventually, but that won’t help the temperature inversion problem.
Bruce
18 Jan 13 at 8:26 pm
Bruce,
I suspect you are describing an alternating electrical current that is powering the sun, and the solar system as a whole. Or I should say an oscillating circuit with a period of 60 years.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 8:27 pm
Louis – I don’t know. The 60 year cycle could be a 3:1 resonance with the double solar cycle or it could be Scafetta’s hypothesis, or a bit of both. Kepler didn’t at the time know why planetary orbits fit ellipses, but they did.
Bruce
18 Jan 13 at 8:33 pm
I dont know – we had the coldest Nov and Dec on record where it seemed like summer wasnt coming at all. Now its hot and its like summer arrived late.
My hibiscus flowered very late this year. The flowers are just coming out now but i distinctly recall our friends commenting on how nice the flowers were at New Year last year.
They are only just opening now. Ive been wondering about why they are late to flower. I think because summer arrived late thats all.
Alice
18 Jan 13 at 8:35 pm
Bruce,
The plasma universe theories add further possibilities to explain the cycle, but this topic will be seriously off thread so I’ll leave it here.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 8:37 pm
Ol ozzie says
““Australia’s new trend to turn as much forest and grassland as possible into national parks is very dangerous,” she said.
“They constitute Australia’s biggest firestorm.”
This is right. The aboriginies burned off land systematically (?because they were =smarter than us and had got used to what they have to do over so many million years’)
They burned off the land so when they arrived back to that location on their (also systematic) nomadic travels, the grasses were fresh and green, the shoots all new, which attracted animals they could also eat for food as well as the new shoots etc
Whereas the greens fighting against burn offs are a pain in the arse.
I grew up with our back fence on a national park and back in the 50s, 60s and 70s they built whopping bgg fire trails deep through this national park so fire trucks could get in and out and they regularly maintained these and back burned regularly.
The greens really give me the pips with these stupid no back burning policies but I also have to ask how much of it is skungy governments, wasting our money, who have agreed to cutbacks in fire services?
Alice
18 Jan 13 at 8:43 pm
Sydney did not come close to its record. According to the BOM’s website, the maximum temperature at Sydney Observatory Hill reached 42.3 degrees, well below the record of 45.3 degrees of 14 January 1939.
Samuel J
18 Jan 13 at 8:54 pm
How come we pay the carbon tax yet still get hot weather?
Perhaps we should increase it until the weather cools off.
jupes
18 Jan 13 at 9:05 pm
Bruce of Newcastle, you link that New Scientist article as if it disproves AGW, but the article merely points out that the recent oscillation you lot are all crowing about is a short term phenomenon which will swing back into full cry warming by the end of the decade. In other words, the Escalator will jump up once again, giving you another high data point from which to plot your next series of cherrypicked graphs.
Carbon pricing and other such measures were never about what happens in the next ten years. They were about 2050 and 2100 and beyond. The long term forecasts, even by the Met Office, are unchanged and that is all that matters.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 9:05 pm
Off topic, but more fun to read than mOnty’s comments. h/t sdfc
Poor Old Rafe
18 Jan 13 at 9:08 pm
It looks a great site Rafe. I’ve added it to the favourites.
sdfc
18 Jan 13 at 9:10 pm
Oh dear Samuel J, et tu.
So is the Australian newspaper also part of the Green conspiracy to lie about the weather?
Sweltering Sydney records hottest day at 45.8C
How about the Daily Telegraph, is that also captured by leftist fifth columnists?
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 9:12 pm
Monty
Not being a scientist and given what I learnt about how the planet heats in high school I tend to believe the scientific consensus.
However hot or cold conditions on any day, in any month or in any year are not proof for or against AGW.
sdfc
18 Jan 13 at 9:16 pm
Monty and Hammygar:
I’m still waiting for you to offer proof that climate change, something that has gone on for millions of years, and is not going to be stopped by a carbon (dioxide) tax, is human caused?
Boambee John
18 Jan 13 at 9:19 pm
m0nty old fruit, still awaiting your explanation of how the climate heats up. C’mon, you can do it. All seriousness aside, you’ve got the smarts.
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 9:24 pm
Agreed, sdfc. But add those extremes up, then compare them to previous records, and you get a picture of a planet that has more extremes of temperature and more massive weather events which cause billions of dollars more in damages every year.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 9:25 pm
Hey, it’s Government Grant B. How’s that government grant going, Government Grant B?
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 9:26 pm
Given the current record cold spell in the northern hemisphere that’s a very sensible statement.
Bedwetters.
Rabz
18 Jan 13 at 9:29 pm
mUttley – hyperbowl hero.
Rabz
18 Jan 13 at 9:32 pm
Monty
I agree there do seem to have been more extreme weather events over the past few years. I live in a city where rainfall has slumped over the past 40 years.
However a hot day in Sydney is irrelevant on its own.
sdfc
18 Jan 13 at 9:33 pm
Samuel
I was talking telephonically with family in Sydney this afternoon (Narrabeen area) and was told it was 45 C. Here in the Antarctic (Perth) it is < 30 C. So hot that I did not need to start the aircon in the mobile home to make the climate liveable.
Last night I also slept with the doona on the bed, and no air con either.
What Glowball Vorming? Heavens, the climate at moi hasn't change much at all, if anything things are becoming cooler.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 9:34 pm
National Parks and bushland generally have become a threat to humanity via bad or no management, not a good thing to be genuflected to. The Greens and the communist fellow travellers are a threat as well, and are known by their deeds. Ultimately, Labor has lost its link to the genuine Aussie workers (now just milk cows for the unions) and is now no more valuable than the others it consorts with.
blogstrop
18 Jan 13 at 9:36 pm
sdfc
Where do you live? Not in a place that was the target of CSIRO cloud seeding after WWII per chance?
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 9:36 pm
Perth
sdfc
18 Jan 13 at 9:37 pm
No m0nty, no governments grants for me, I only pocketed my principal research scientist salary.
Now back to climate heating. You seem to have gone a bit silent on it. I’m sure you’re loading up and will soon deliver a level of scientific brilliance never before seen at this site.
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 9:41 pm
m0nty – Again you have seen this stuff plenty of times.
The AMO follows a 60 year cycle, and has done so for at least the last thousand years according to this paper by a Michael E Mann (if you ask him nicely he’ll come and speak for you, for only $10,000 a pop).
The PDO follows a 60 year cycle. So do rainfall records, sea level records and ENSO too.
You will see that PDO flipped over before 2000, it has helped cause the flatness in temperature from then. The AMO is a quarter phase staggered from the PDO, it is only just moving over now.
I didn’t say the UK Met Office has told the whole story – they are dragging their feet because if CAGW falls so do they, or many of them will.
But ‘short term phenomenon which will swing back at the end of the decade’? Are you nuts? Can you read a graph? Try 2030.
On top of that even NASA thinks the solar minimum will last at least 30 years. Don’t hold your breath sonny boy.
Bruce
18 Jan 13 at 9:41 pm
Perth ?
The rainfall hasn’t slumped – it hasn’t changed much at all. What has changed is the vegetation management of the water capture areas around our dams, as well as a lack of planning for the increased population water requirements. My friend and colleague Warwick Hughes has quantified the relevant statistics of rainfall in the Perth region etc.
You would disagree I suspect.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 9:43 pm
Yes they do. Bankstown at 3.00pm is showing 44.3, and 44.8 at 3.30pm. Yet they are claiming 46.1 at 3.28pm. Que?
Likewise Sydney Observatory is 45.1 at 2.30pm and 44.7 at 3.00pm. Yet they claim 45.8 (the hottest temp on record for Sydney) at 2.55pm.
None of their half hourly recorded measurements have broken the record.
It is also remarkable how quickly the reports of a new ‘record’ found their way to Fauxfacts and the ALPBC this afternoon.
They have been very busy bees down at BoM.
Lazlo
18 Jan 13 at 9:45 pm
It has Louis. It fell sharply in hte mid-70s and again in the nineties. I read somewhere it is due to a tightening of the polar cyclone which is dragging all those beautiful cold fronts to the south.
I,m not attributing this to global warming because I never read any theory to suggest that is the cause.
sdfc
18 Jan 13 at 9:48 pm
Hot weather tends to do that
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 9:48 pm
If that was the case, it has changed now (see above). I have taken a screen shot in case there are any further ‘adjustments’
Lazlo
18 Jan 13 at 9:58 pm
Yes, in 1939 the dollar amount would have been less, shocking I know.
jumpnmcar
18 Jan 13 at 9:58 pm
sdfc,
Ahhh, ok, the movement of the cold fronts to the south makes sense to me in terms of plasma theory in that a tightening of the polar cyclone suggests that we are dealing with an increased solar electrical current.
Observations of lightning and ice formation in clouds is conventionally explained by the increased collision of ice particles from increased ice production in clouds causing more lightning from ice-ice collisions. The plasma explanation is that it’s the increase in the local electrical field that causes more ice to precipitate in clouds and that it’s this increased electrical activity that’s forming the ice.
So the tentative conclusion is that increased electrical currents are associated with ice formation and coldness.
Hmmm. About this I need to think about (apologies to Yoda).
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 9:59 pm
Horsehocks – my previous interpretation is wrong – tightening of the polar cyclone is the result of a current decrease. But what would I know?
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 10:02 pm
Yes I got caught out with that also upthread from you, Samuel. monty was only too happy to point out the error of my ways – although he was rather neutral in his manner, unlike the snark he showed towards you.
Anyways, as I pointed out to monty, the 2013 “record heatwave” [lol] today in Sydney was only 0.5deg higher than the previous record set 74 -freaking-years-ago, ffs. 45.3 v 45.8 BFD.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 10:05 pm
Louis if you are looking for an in depth discussion of the cause you have picked the wrong person. I have no idea. All I know is, it is a concern.
sdfc
18 Jan 13 at 10:07 pm
Ah right, so you’re just another silly conspiracy theorist, Bruce. You’re about as bad as Lazlo, Rafe, Samuel J and the other dunderheads constructing conspiracy theories about the BoM out of thin air.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 10:07 pm
LOL Gab, you’re a hoot. If it had been 450 degrees C then you would have said, “So what, it gets that hot on Mercury every day.”
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 10:12 pm
And mUttley would say:
Rabz
18 Jan 13 at 10:17 pm
So how do you explain the documented (saved) inconsistencies on the BOM web site that have been highlighted here.
None of their half hourly recorded measurements show a new record maximum in Sydney today.
Go!
Lazlo
18 Jan 13 at 10:19 pm
m0nty – What conspiracy theory? You quoted them via New Scientist. I showed that their quote is wrong. Its not my data I linked to, its NOAA’s as far as I know.
Now if they can’t see what is in front of their eyes then they are incompetent. If they know about the 60 year cycle and fail to tell us the public then they are mendacious.
Which do you choose m0nty the red pill or the blue pill?
Either way they should be reorganised seriously. Do you like paying your taxes to support mendacious or incompetent public servants m0nty?
Bruce
18 Jan 13 at 10:22 pm
Louis Hissink, see http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/thought1.html
Jim Rose
18 Jan 13 at 10:22 pm
C’Mon m0nty there are people in the IPCC waiting for your thoughts on climate warming. Mate, you’re up there with the best. Suppress your inmate modesty and just hit us with it.
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 10:30 pm
Alice said:
This is right. The aboriginies burned off land systematically (?because they were =smarter than us and had got used to what they have to do over so many million years’)
———————–
How many million years are we talking about here, Alice?
Please go an infest a mummyblog where your half-baked and ignorant rants will be regarded as akin to the Second Coming.
johanna
18 Jan 13 at 10:31 pm
Jim,
Thanks for the links – definitely more reading!
Those references raise an unmentionable – the role of the Jews in the middle class – could it be that the preference by Jews for sound money is at the root of anti-Semitism? Might they have been the first to see through the inherent devaluation of the purchasing power of the market-based monies by the introduction of fiat money? No wonder statists disliked them; yet the most ardent of the statists were Jewish; Bolsheviks etc last century.
A total contradiction yet typical of our lefty interlocutors.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 10:36 pm
Er… inate but maybe inmate is not far off the mark.
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 10:37 pm
The maximum happened at 2.55pm. Five minutes later, the temperature fluctuated below the previous record. Temperatures change within minutes. Why is this so hard for your tiny brain to comprehend? Why do you have to construct a conspiracy theory to explain your own ignorance?
LOL, the answer is you are a complete idiot Lazlo.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 10:41 pm
Monty
Documented where?
It’s only your say so that the max actually happened. Who measured it, and where was it recorded?
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 10:44 pm
You quote a subset of effects at work in climate and pretend as if they explain all fluctuations. To explain the discrepancy between your silly postulations and the consensus view by respected sources as reflected in long term predictions from the Met Office, you invent a political conspiracy by those in the Met Office to protect their careers.
You are engaged in denialism, Bruce. You cherry pick data to suit your argument and try to obfuscate everything else. It is easy to see through.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 10:47 pm
The dating of Aboriginal existence in Australia is based on rather problematical science – science that is compatible with the religion of the dominant culture it is used in.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 10:47 pm
I’ve just come back to this thread after having enjoyed a bottle or so of champagne with my wife celebrating the final demise of climate denialism and I find you lot still at it. Its just like the playing of that band on the deck of the Titanic as it sank into the depths of the Atlantic.
Goodbye chums! You’ve all had a good innings. Ha Ha Ha.
hammygar
18 Jan 13 at 10:50 pm
They seem to have been here a long time. Is there credible evidence that this is not true?
sdfc
18 Jan 13 at 10:51 pm
Poor Hammy. No one takes you seriously.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 10:52 pm
Documented on the BoM Web site on that observations table.
Here mate, I’ll make it real easy for you. I have highlighted it on this screenshot. You’re welcome.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 10:53 pm
As I suspected, they adjusted the 1939 record down to make the current cycle appear hotter than it is. According to notes provided by Janama at JoNova, “the original Sydney data (red) and the adjusted data by Simon Torok in 1996 in blue. The black shows the amount of adjustment.”
And, in the aknowledgements, “Phil Jones provided his average temperatures for the comparison in Fig.7… This research was a PhD project funded by The National Greenhouse Advisory Committee.”
Tom
18 Jan 13 at 10:54 pm
why was it so hot in 1939? didn’t the globe cool from 1940 to the 1970s?
Jim Rose
18 Jan 13 at 10:56 pm
Just need to get down to your level for a moment moanty..
You are a fat, ignorant imbecile. Fuck off.
There, that feels better.
Lazlo
18 Jan 13 at 10:57 pm
Kudos to hammy, at least he doesn’t fall for m0nty’s thesis that the climate is warming. But is he aware that champers releases the evil CO2?
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 10:58 pm
Do you often go off one data point to make a forecast Jim?
sdfc
18 Jan 13 at 10:59 pm
Wonder what method and how often the BOM calibrates the temperature gadgets they use to measure “the climate as a whole heats up” thingy.
Gab
18 Jan 13 at 10:59 pm
It’s difficult for me to react any other way, Lazlo, to someone who shows so much misguided faith in his own intellect.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 11:00 pm
A second hand source? Twitter ???
Primary source Monty please, not your socially irresponsible sources like Twitter that also alleged that Tony Abbott punched a wall.
How many planks have you consumed today?
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:04 pm
I took that screenie myself from the BoM site, Louis. Visit the URL, it wasn’t altered apart from the highlighting.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 11:05 pm
I hope Geoff Sherrington will not object if I quote his post from WUWT:
Geoff Sherrington says:
January 18, 2013 at 3:21 am
There are many unusual factors that need to come together in a very short time to cause a rash of bush fires. Certainly, one of them is a high air temperature – but high when?
We are hearing stories of record daily maximum temperatures in Sydney and Canberra today, 18 Jan 2013. The regional fire season started a few days before this. So we tend to talk about preparing the scene for many fires on a hot day among a line of hot days. We talk in terms of heat waves.
Perhaps history tells a story. Here is a graph showing the heat waves, defined over any 5 successive days in Januaries, for Sydney and Melbourne, going back 150 years.
http://www.geoffstuff.com/HEAT%20WAVES.pdf
By this definition, heat waves are becoming cooler in recent times – if you want to split hairs.
For 2013, Sydney and Melbourne, are way off the bottom of the chart if we take rough figures forecast for the next 4 days, or actual temps for the past 4 days. We have merely a hot system over central Australia, possibly because of a short monsoon disruption near the continental north coast. Some of this heat dribbled east, over to Sydney and Canberra.
As for daily records, think UHI. The temp max for Sydney at 45.8 degrees today, was taken from the Observatory, slap bang in the middle of 4 million people who were not there for the older record of 45.3 deg C on 14 Jan 1939 when the population and development was smaller by far.
Also from history 13 Jan 1939, the bushfires of Black Friday killed 70 people in Victoria, This was the day before Sydney’s hottest day – after UHI is reasonably taken off.
Moral – one swallow doth not a summer make.
———————
Geoff is part of a group of volunteers who have been trying to sort their way through the morass that is the BOM record for some years now. It is not a pretty sight. Notably, when data is missing, the BOM just use a mysterious algorithm and fill in the blanks – and voila! complete temperature records. No-one accessing the data would even know that it was not based on real observations.
People who believe either past or present BOM ‘readings’ as literal fact need to get out more. Last night, in the midst of the heatwave, the minimum temperature dropped to 15 degrees in 10 minutes, where I live according to the BOM. In fact it was around 24, and a drop like that would be noticeable. This bogus figure stayed up for at least 3 hours.
How did it get there? Is it being fed into their database?
As Harry read_me said (in the ClimateGate emails), Australian temperature data is a nightmare. Time to sack all the propagandists and focus on proper recording and short-term forecasting.
johanna
18 Jan 13 at 11:05 pm
So we are meant to care that you find it so ‘difficult’ living in your gutter?
Lazlo
18 Jan 13 at 11:06 pm
The very technique of choosing the starting point of a trend series plot.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:08 pm
I await Louis’ explanation for New Ltd being part of the conspiracy to hoodwink the Australian people about the temperature record.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 11:08 pm
Great post PoR, thank you. Especially the food packaging link. Pity Roxon doesn’t have the same sense of humour with tobacco packaging.
I found Doug Huffman’s knowledge of ticks surpassed your knowledge of Popper.
Your previous posts on Popper had me reading many of your links and suggestions, greatly appreciated.
Jessie
18 Jan 13 at 11:12 pm
m0nty – I await Louis’ explanation for ……”
I await your explanation of how the climate is warming. Give it a shot. You know you’re up to it.
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 11:15 pm
Gab, we have to wait for the fact-checking, which has to be done without the resources that were used to doctor the original temperature records. It appears to be straight-up fraud conducted in 1996 as outlined above with the connivance of Phil Jones of the East Anglia CRU and activists in the Australian government.
Tom
18 Jan 13 at 11:16 pm
M0nty
Why didn’t you circle the temperature at Mascot below? It was 46.4 deg. C about half an hour before your twitter around 3pm.
Or cherry picking, a sin you accuse us of?
FO!
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:17 pm
For instance, can this be falsified?
How is this for one suck?
Jessie
18 Jan 13 at 11:21 pm
Sydney reached 45.8C today, 0.5C hotter than the prevous record set in 1939. However, the Tmean, the average between the maximum and minimum, was higher in 39.
In any event AGW cannot be responsible because the airborne fraction, that % of human CO2 emissions left in the atmosphere is insufficient to explain the increase in atmospheric CO2 increase; Ian Hill’s graph clearly shows that.
Therefore the high temp is due to nature.
cohenite
18 Jan 13 at 11:21 pm
sdfc, I am not making any connections between the temperatures of the last few days and global warming. those that do should know better.
Jim Rose
18 Jan 13 at 11:22 pm
News Limited is part of a conspiracy to hoodwink the Australian people about the temperature record?
I am used to lefties fabricating things but gee this one raises the bar a tad, Monty.
Sorry but I can’t answer it for the simple reason I have no data.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:22 pm
Because the record is for the Observatory Hill station, Louis. Do try to keep up.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 11:23 pm
So how do you explain News Ltd web sites all dutifully reporting the Sydney temperature record, Louis? Are they one with the lizard people as well?
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 11:25 pm
Hey M0nty, I assume you would regard the statement, “never cross a river whose average depth is 4 feet” as irrelevant to your understanding of weather data. (weather because most of us don’t live long enough to collect climate data).
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:25 pm
M0nty, what makes you think I read News Limited sites?
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:27 pm
Indeed.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 11:27 pm
monty, you are a typical alarmist; like vultures, squawking about the end of the world, and jumping on anything ‘bad’ to say “I told you so”.
cohenite
18 Jan 13 at 11:28 pm
Lizard people? What are they? Some weird tribe at the south pole?
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:29 pm
Tom
18 Jan 13 at 11:31 pm
M0nty,
I read the Schiff report and the Daily Bell, the Modesty Blaise and Calvin cartoons each day during the working week. Evenings the Lew Rockwell site, Quadrant, American Thinker, the Hi Fi news, and that’s it. Oh and the Cats.
So forgive me if I am ignorant of your expertise in the recitation of …. dogma.
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:35 pm
Oh and the Alex Cartoon each morning arriving at work.
You do work for a living, no?
Louis Hissink
18 Jan 13 at 11:37 pm
No reply, no explanation because there is none possible, of course.
m0nty
18 Jan 13 at 11:47 pm
No, m0nty is not a troll, he’s a scientific idiot. What he knows about science I could scratch on the back of a sixpence with a crowbar. He made an incredibly stupid statement earlier that “the climate is warming”. He then changes the subject and hasn’t the balls to own up to or explain his ridiculous previous statement.
But he is fun in perverse sort of way. I will now refer to m0nty as m0nty (climate warming) BA and my spell checker has been set accordingly.
Grant B
18 Jan 13 at 11:50 pm
a far more accurate and descriptive reference is simply Fatboy. He knows it’s about him.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 11:52 pm
Monst
Give Grant B your bio. Go on.
I will if you don’t and you know my version won;t be padded.
JC
18 Jan 13 at 11:55 pm
Wow, we really got under m0nty’s skin with this thread.
Still he did actually provide a few links, which were promptly falsified by official data and peer reviewed publications.
Then he ran out of arguments and went ad hom. Why is it that CAGW people are so insecure that they (a) can’t find the data and science to counter sceptical arguments and (b) resort to bad mouthing? No need to reply, this is rhetorical.
But it brings to highlight the problem for our CAGW friends, that whenever they try to match it with sceptics they get pwned every time.
Interestingly Al Gore’s Climate Reality project, who has been training fiercesome climate warriors, finally allowed one out to debate a sceptic a couple weeks ago, and not a sceptical scientist either. Same result, completely pwned.
And here when the ABC was mousetrapped into televising the debate between a sceptic and a CAGW person the latter likewise was embarassing.
And now m0nty. Were you trained by Al Gore m0nty?
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 7:19 am
Bruce, your childish declaration of victory paints you as a petty troll.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 9:18 am
The Sydney record, as I said earlier was not in respect of Tmean and by way of comparison with the ’39 temp of 45.3C has not had any UHI effect factored in.
Still, it was a hot day.
cohenite
19 Jan 13 at 9:26 am
At last, something we can all agree upon.
Except maybe for Gab.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 9:32 am
Links, m0nty, where are they?
Where are your citations of peer review science? Like this one from yesterday – which further indicates that the Sun is responsible for most of the warming we’ve seen.
Where is the data you use to counter sceptical claims? I have not seen on this thread anything which has not been proven wrong by data, papers or logic.
And that, son, is why you fail to convince anyone. You can’t ask people to spend $64 trillion based on sheer faith, m0nty.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 9:48 am
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 10:01 am
Oh, fuck off monty; anyone who links to the utterly discredited Doran and Zimmerman ‘survey’ and expects to be taken seriously is delusional; this survey is only exceeded in stupidity and duplicity by Lewandowsky’s survey which compares AGW sceptics to deniers of the moon landing and ignores the fact that all the surviving moon landing astronauts are AGW sceptics.
cohenite
19 Jan 13 at 10:07 am
For m0nty.
Cold-Hands
19 Jan 13 at 10:22 am
So when the wind changed from westerly ( straight off bush fires ) to more easterly ( not off bush fires ) the thermometers showed a huge reduction in temp.
Sounds about right.
jumpnmcar
19 Jan 13 at 10:27 am
wherein 75 climate “scientists” believe in globull worming.
LOL.
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 10:27 am
“Still, it was a hot day.”
But, but monty as jarrah said – “The point being it’s not the normal kind of hot”.
“the climate is warming” monty have you got your sandwich board ready? Where will you be stationed today? On the corner of Willam and Hay streets?
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 10:32 am
It’s only discredited amongst you deniers, cohenite. But you guys have no credibility.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 10:35 am
monty still believes the earth is flat.
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 10:36 am
Now who’s being snarky, Gab?
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 10:39 am
Can’t you take a joke, monty? A bit of gentle teasing? You’re very sensitive today.
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 10:40 am
I’ll remember that line next time you get your knickers in a twist over my tone, Gab.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 10:44 am
You can dish it out but you can’t take, eh monty. Listen, I wasn’t being snarky, I really was just teasing you. I had no idea you were so sensitive. Look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll say sorry.
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 10:46 am
Oh I see, Gab. When I do it, it’s snark. When you do it, it’s gentle teasing. Gotcha.
Carry on.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 10:54 am
And before anyone attributes the ” record breaking flooding in Jakata ” to AGW, I heard an ABC onsite reporter say ” It’s still raining heavily but since authorities have inspected and unblocked drains the floodwater has markedly decreased.”
So unless co2 blocks drains, it’s a normal monsoon up their.
jumpnmcar
19 Jan 13 at 11:05 am
m0nty – the Doran paper you link to looked at these questions:
I who also have a PhD in science would answer ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ to those two questions.
Do you understand what is meant by ‘significance’?
I have always maintained that the temperature rise when pCO2 doubles is around 0.7 C, consistent with empirical measurements by several research groups.
That is ‘a significant contributing factor’ in the statistical sense.
But because response is logarithmic you would have to rise from todays 400 ppmV to 800 for 0.7 C rise, to 1600 for 1.4 C rise and 3200 ppmV for 2.1 C rise.
So to get the IPCC’s safe maximum of 2 C rise we would have to put about 25 times as much CO2 into the atmosphere from what we have done so far.
There isn’t enough coal and oil on Earth to do this.
So you can answer ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ to those two survey questions and think CAGW is precluded and CO2 not dangerous. Which those two authors did not remember to say in their paper.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 11:10 am
You can maintain all you like, Bruce, but your opinion is worthless and is wildly divergent with mainstream climate science.
What exactly is your PhD in, Bruce? Let me guess: geology?
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 11:16 am
He has no idea..
Lazlo
19 Jan 13 at 11:18 am
Here m0nty I will help you.
What you say is this:
And me the sceptic is supposed to say:
SkS ‘How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic’ talking point no. 1134.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 11:18 am
Fatboy, get back in your hole.
Bruce, Fatboy failed first year Monash economics as he wasn’t up to it. He then went to some J-school. That’s the extent of Fatboy’s science education. That and eating Dunkins donuts.
Monst, did you get through J school?
JC
19 Jan 13 at 11:19 am
m0nty – My PhD is in chemistry from the University of Sydney. I have been a working R&D scientist for three decades and I have many publications. My experience includes much computer modelling: financial, iterative, thermodynamic and statistical for large projects. I have a formal qualification in statistics.
You know all this because of course you read the comments which I post, where I’ve mentioned this from time to time when questioned.
Still batting zero there, m0nty.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 11:26 am
What schooling did you do JC, if any? You seem a poorly educated man, who exists on conmanship and rat cunning.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 11:27 am
So nothing at all to do with climate science. You’re as qualified as me to talk about it, Bruce. Don’t bung on your argument from authority.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 11:28 am
Bald guy is potentially the GOP candidate after Bloomberg is termed out on his short arse.
Some of you won’t like him. Trust me, he’s the best you’re going to get.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/01/18/pundit-if-anyone-scares-the-new-york-city-democrats-its-joe-lhota/
JC
19 Jan 13 at 11:31 am
Oops.. wrong fred.
JC
19 Jan 13 at 11:31 am
The American Geophysical Union is infested by warmists such as Gleick (also a proven liar and indentity thief).
By moanty’s logic, anything the AGU pronounces on climate has no standing.
(I believe this to be so anyway, but thanks for the corroboration)
Lazlo
19 Jan 13 at 11:32 am
So let’s look at those three links again. The first two are to papers which have not been peer reviewed, and thus are worthless. The third is to Lindzen and Choi 2011, which was an update on the 2009 paper that Lindzen admitted had “stupid mistakes” and was “just embarrassing”. The 2011 paper was sent for peer review by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with two reviewers chosen by Lindzen himself. All four rejected the paper, leading to its quiet publication in some Korean journal no one has ever heard of.
Bruce, if this is the standard of scientific rigour you demand of your sources, you must be a poor chemist. Tell me where you work, so I never have to rely on your obviously weak scientific professionalism.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 11:37 am
Very few people have a direct connection to formal climate science as a discipline, Fat boy, you appalling turd.
James Hansen, Eric Schmidt, Phil Jones, Doc Pach, Michael Mann… all these people have no PhD in climate science.
Chemistry is a fine discipline to have.
Lol. You’re delusional dunkins muncher. You have no formal studies in science unless you think a J school degree is hard science.
He has more authority than you ever will, dipshit. Go away.
JC
19 Jan 13 at 11:38 am
A critique of the Doran and Zimmerman farrago’s methodology [sic] is here.
Another critique is here. From the link:
Anyway, consensus like arguing from authority is not a scientific basis for proving anything; but the point is the climate scientists have no authority and they can’t even manufacture a consensus.
AGW is a scam, hot days or not.
cohenite
19 Jan 13 at 11:38 am
Pachauri – mechanical engineer and Mills & Boon author.
Flannery – dinosaur poo qualifications
Lewandowsky – psychologist
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 11:39 am
david friedman’s latest lecture on global warming are at http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.co.nz/
Friedman points out that global warming are mostly benign unless the low-probability events are included in the economics.
• Many, however, only look at low-probability negative events such as much faster warming and the collapse of ice-sheets in Greenland.
• They do not look at low-probability positive events such as carbon emissions delaying the next ice age.
Ice ages and inter-glacials are not very well understood.
Global cooling and in particular the next age are much more worrying. A mile thick ice sheet covering North American and Europe would be a very bad thing.
Friedman’s point is we have been in an interglacial for a fair while, and it would not be surprising if it ended soon. Ant delaying of ice ages are a good thing.
The Younger Dryas seems have occurred within less than 100 years. This was a 1,300 period of 15C cold climate and drought. the Younger Dryas ended in 40–50 years
Jim Rose
19 Jan 13 at 11:47 am
OK, m0nty, you have just disqualified Will Steffen head of the ANU Climate Change Institute and Climate commissioner whose qualifications are similar to mine. Indeed mine are actually more relevant than his.
Why here it says that Michael E Mann Famous Climate Scientist™
is a semiconductor physicist, how about that?
Keep digging m0nty, I’m sure you’ll get to China eventually.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 11:47 am
What sort of PhD would a person need to hold to be credible about climate, moanty? Serious question.
Lazlo
19 Jan 13 at 11:49 am
Bruce
Monst is an expert in one though, which can’t be taken away from him. He is the lead author on donuts. He knows intimately about every single type of donut created by man. Ask him.
JC
19 Jan 13 at 11:49 am
As I have said before, Flannery is a fool, and there are many dilettantes on both sides with a lack of credentials. The actual climate scientists with credibility to speak on such matters almost all agree with AGW.
Beyond the rather silly debate about percentages, the major finding from Doran was that as one’s qualifications are more genuine in climate science, so grows one’s agreement with the climate science consensus on AGW. The more genuine knowledge you gain about it, the more you accept that AGW is real. That is something no one can deny.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 11:50 am
Although of course as soon as I type that last bit, I know you lot will see that as a challenge and deny it ever more vociferously.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 11:50 am
monty has a scoop, the peer reviewer’s rejecting comments on the first draft of L&C 2011.
L&C’s first paper in 2009 was flawed, and many of the criticisms basically were to do with the time of measurement of the radiative fluxes and the focus on the tropics; the 2011 first draft looked at those and after rejection by PNAS, further amendments were made before being accepted by the Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.
L&C 2011 has taken a lot of flack because it shows that climate sensitivity is much less then AGW relies on; in fact it disproves the extent of AGW.
It has been discussed to death but I’m happy to read monty’s considered criticism of the paper bearing in mind that while L&C 2009 was subject to legitmate cricism none has been forthcoming for the final 2011 version.
cohenite
19 Jan 13 at 11:55 am
Okay. I’m a believer. I think it’s happening and that it could end up being a problem in future decades.
This is where da science takes a bow and leaves the stage. What to do about it? Why act? Why do anymore than simply observe?
Where is the huge growth of emissions coming from, you dickhead? It’s not the developed world, which if one takes the US alone will see a halving of it’s emissions by 2050.
Explain to us what needs to be done while keeping the arrow pointing upwards for living standards.
Go!
JC
19 Jan 13 at 11:55 am
Steffen’s CV makes you look like a toddler playing with his dad’s cigarette lighter. Nice try, Bruce.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 12:00 pm
Still waiting..
You are the one arguing from authority. So let’s argue.
Lazlo
19 Jan 13 at 12:13 pm
m0nty – I just said I agree with you.
Sure we all pretty much agree on AGW. Dick Lindzen would agree, since its his sensitivity value I quoted.
But so what? What is at issue is dangerous CAGW. This is precluded by the data.
And therefore it is unnecessary and dishonest to maintain a carbon tax and the RET. Logic.
(Ah, we’re back to ad homs again are we m0nty? Must have hit you in a soft spot. Don’t like your Gaian saints downplayed do you? Well I don’t want to rule the world like he apparently does.)
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 12:16 pm
m0nty
And that brings us nicely to the last link in the roundup.
Have you read the LINK ?
jumpnmcar
19 Jan 13 at 12:18 pm
Cohenite – Ah, you look at links! I was wondering whether m0nty would. So I rang a little bell but he did not salivate. Oh well, I’ll have to try something else.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 12:21 pm
Rats, have to correct myself. Sorry. m0nty is so productive in posting I missed his salivation episode. Very good m0nty I am impressed you heard my little bell.
I was going to point out that NASA had launched the satellite upon which CERES sits for the express purpose of experimentally determining from outward IR what the value for climate sensitivity is.
Previous to L&C 2011 we had another paper which found climate sensitivity was equivalent to 0.6 C/doubling. (m0nty – little bell ringing here.) Well within Lindzen’s 99% confidence interval.
No other group has used outward IR to measure sensitivity from this very expensive satellite which NASA launched with som much difficulty for this expressed purpose. I wonder why?
Well, I was uncertain so I thought to myself can I set a test for Dr Lindzen and work out climate sensitivity a completely different way (remembering to myself, m0nty, my qualifications and experience with statistics to wit multiple regression)? And lo! My model finds a climate sensitivity (by goalseek) of 0.694 C/doubling (there must have been some more decimal places but I forget them). Not at all in the IPCC’s range of 2.5-4.0 C.
Lindzen’s result corroborated. Perhaps m0nty you would like to falsify my findings. All the information you need is available for your attempt, right here.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 12:42 pm
Hi Bruce; you may know and be able to confirm that Lindzen and Choi 2011 came in 2 forms at least; the first rejected by PNAS and the second adjusted accepted by the Asia Pacific Journal of Climate.
That’s my understanding anyway.
cohenite
19 Jan 13 at 12:44 pm
Mine too. Judy Curry was pretty caustic about the treatment Lindzen received from the sorcerers of NAS. Shabby. No fellow of the NAS had hitherto been treated that way.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 12:53 pm
m0nty – that’s argument from authority you resort to – but I forget, your side worships the adage that “Leadership matters” – the election label for PM Paul Keating’s loss to the Howard government.
Louis Hissink
19 Jan 13 at 1:46 pm
Bruce: submit your analysis to a peer reviewed publication. If it passes muster, then it’s worth discussing. Otherwise, it’s just the amateur dabblings of an unknown chemist in a subject far removed from his speciality.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 2:03 pm
Well no Bruce, you don’t agree on AGW. You’ll go so far as to allow that there’s a negligible anthropogenic effect, but disagree on anything which by implication would suggest a policy or behavioural change. For all practical purposes, you are a denier.
Your argument against the carbon price is predicated on blind faith in a discredited series of calculations that no one in legitimate climate science circles really believes. You are not using logic, you are reciting lies.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 2:14 pm
Alright, a worthwhile contribution from JC. A rare animal.
The plans, such as they have been, assume that India and China, and most likely Africa after them, will increase emissions as they bootstrap themselves out of subsistence and towards a first world lifestyle with rule of law and healthy middle classes. This is impossible to stop, and it would be folly to try even if we wanted to. This economic and social uplift is a Good Thing.
The west, however, has no excuse to keep raising emissions. We have the technology, we have the wealth, we have the science. We started the problem, we should start the solution.
As the west invests in green tech, hopefully the science will improve emissions outcomes in the short term, and that can smooth down the spike in emissions from the developing countries. Whether that comes from super-safe nukes, photo-voltaics, shale gas or whatever, the west has to take the lead in perfecting cheap, safe and technically simple energy sources for the newer emission-aware economy.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 2:28 pm
Why? I’m satisfied with my publication record. I don’t feel any need to embark on a new career.
But I do have to pay the carbon tax, and RET, through my power bill so I am entitled to investigate the claims of the proponents. Which turned out to be complete and utter ideological bulldust of the most effective mushroom growing variety.
No, m0nty, that is not what I said. What I said is that AGW is significant. Which for the PhD’s who answered that survey would be the meaning they would apply.
Significant means measureable and definable within a 95% confidence. Lindzen measures 0.5 -1.3C/doubling within the 99% confidence, which means he exceeded the hurdle for statistical significance.
It is then a second requirement to show that AGW is harmful. I showed you by primary data and numerous peer reviewed journal papers that it is not dangerous.
If AGW is significant but not harmful why would a policy or behavioural change be required?
Now the problem with a carbon price, or tax, is it is intended to address (in Gillard’s words) “dangerous climate change”. As CO2 is not linked to dangerous climate change (ie CAGW) according to these data, therefore a carbon tax is dishonest.
I have no ethical objection to politicians voting for a carbon tax for pure revenue collection purposes, if this is the overt policy taken to the election. Unfortunately any politician who tried this on the electorate would win an election.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 2:32 pm
Sorry “would NOT win an election”.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 2:35 pm
Pearls before swine Bruce. He has no idea what ‘significant’ means. The response will be yet another grunt.
Lazlo
19 Jan 13 at 2:40 pm
“as one’s
qualifications are more genuine in climate sciencenose gets more deeply buried in the CAGW trough, so grows one’s agreement with the climate science consensus on AGWFixed.
Still waiting. Which qualifications are more genuine in climate science?
Lazlo
19 Jan 13 at 2:45 pm
Otherwise, it’s just the amateur dabblings of an unknown
chemistfantasy footballist in a subject far removed from his speciality.Infidel Tiger
19 Jan 13 at 2:56 pm
CAGW is a bust.
dover_beach
19 Jan 13 at 2:58 pm
Because, Bruce, if you don’t then your calculations aren’t worth a pinch of shit next to the IPCC consensus, and you’ll continue to be ignored.
You linked to non-peer-reviewed rubbish, and discredited Lindzen falderol, all of which is from the 3% minority. You do not stand with the 97% majority.
The AGW effect, as set out by the consensus, is significant and dangerous. You don’t have the power to pick and choose what you agree with. You either agree with the theory and its consequences as worked out by those specialised scientists, or you stand with the anti-science denialists. You have chosen the latter, Bruce.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 3:07 pm
Aaaahahahahaaa.
Read Rafes’ last link at the top m0nty.
Here tis bud.
jumpnmcar
19 Jan 13 at 3:16 pm
So, unless one supports the ‘consensus’ without qualification, one is a “anti-science denialist [sic]“. Dear oh dear.
dover_beach
19 Jan 13 at 3:31 pm
Is that a pic of someone who feeds off this site 14 down?
h/t sfdc and rafe (poor old)
Helen Armstrong
19 Jan 13 at 3:56 pm
m0nty, your pals are people who routinely ‘lose’ temperature data, email archives and now signed statements from a supposedly independent inquiry into avoiding FOI:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/1/18/actons-blind-eye.html#comments
Your transatlantic hero, James Hansen, is currently being proved a liar following revelations that he demands US$10,000 plus (first class) expenses to give a speech – noting that he initially denied it, and that he is supposedly a public servant:
http://junkscience.com/2013/01/18/mann-backtracks-admits-charging-up-to-10000-for-speaking-appearances/#more-34044
And Al Gore has sold his loss-making TV station to oil-funded Al-Jazeera for $100 million.
Your heroes have feet of clay.
You still believe in Jim Jones, even as your comrades fall around you.
johanna
19 Jan 13 at 4:00 pm
If you guys mince monty up any finer, you are gonna need a nano-mincing machine.
Most excellent work, cue standing ovation.
Mk50 of Brisbane
19 Jan 13 at 4:05 pm
Monster:
Developed world emissions are expected to remain flat by 2050 and since the recent projections about the increased gas reserves US emissions are expected to 1/2.
Meanwhile the developing world’s are expected to go up at the rate of knots.
China 4 times US 2006 baseline. Indian about the same and the rest of the developing world around 3 times the US baseline. The next load of emissions are from the developing world and there’s not a fucking thing we can do about it.
Monster, what would be the single most important thing that would make you disbelieve global warming. One thing.
JC
19 Jan 13 at 4:06 pm
Speaking of catastrophic yuman induced climate change (CYICC™) it’s a fabulously mild and pleasant 24 degrees here in the ‘ville.
And life is good.
Rabz
19 Jan 13 at 4:07 pm
Yes JC, and what do we tell the Chinese and Indians? They’re not allowed to develop? Of course we can’t.
We have to take the lead and through our scientific developments help them moderate their emission spikes, but we can’t stop their uplift from subsistence.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 4:16 pm
Thr white man’s burden, eh Mont?
C.L.
19 Jan 13 at 4:21 pm
OMG that…that is so sad. Sure, no problem we’ll just tell the poor little idiots what to do ’cause we know what’s best for them. And, of course, they’ll do exactly as we demand them to do. Yep. Nothing arrogant about that at all.
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 4:34 pm
Yes, CL. China may have nuclear power, nuclear weapons, a space program and a highspeed rail network, but for some reason Australia is in a better position to develop energy-saving tech and save the world.
Thank God for M0nty. You couldn’t make this up.
squawkbox
19 Jan 13 at 4:35 pm
Hey Monty, you excised this sentence fom the post:
Indicating that nothing will change your mind.
Therefore you are a religious dogmatist no different to a culturally inferior sharia-spouting inbred unwashed seventh century illiterate woman-enslaving weirdbeard from some tenth rate islamic crudhole in southern Egypt.
You must be so proud.
Mk50 of Brisbane
19 Jan 13 at 4:37 pm
Shorter Monty and the other racist left-wing greenfilth AGW doomscreamers to the Chinese, Malays, Japanese and Indians “hey, inferior races, whitey knows what’s best for you, ‘mkay? So do what we tell you.”
Chinese, Malays, Japanese and Indians to Monty and the otehr racist left-wing greenfilth AGW doomscreamers: “Piss off you worthless mouthbreathing window-lickering racist dirtbags!”
And justifiably so.
Mk50 of Brisbane
19 Jan 13 at 4:41 pm
Maybe it’s the beer talking but I thought that was funny. Well played JC. Reinforced Segway. Ha!
After all the arguing the point still stands that the reg and carbon tax are stupid, counterproductive a d electorally disastrous ideas.
Brc
19 Jan 13 at 4:43 pm
I have never understood the overt racism of the greenfilth. They openly say ‘you little brown people have 5% of my annual per capita income. For gaia’s holy sake, you must stay poor, and I must stay rich so I can prey on your poverty and starvation so I can feel good about myself.’
Immoral, and actively evil.
Mk50 of Brisbane
19 Jan 13 at 4:44 pm
Now which majority is that m0nty? You just cited Doran’s survey paper which says:
Now since I answer yes to both those questions that puts me in the 90% and the 82%.
Which 97%?
Is it the 97% which Barry Marshall was in when he proved heliobacter pylorii was the primary cause of ulcers?
Is it the 97% that Johannes Kepler was in when he showed that planets follow elliptical orbits?
Or is it the 97% which Alfred Wegener was a part of when he showed that continental drift was occurring?
Or that 97% which included Daniel Shechtman who proved quasicrystals exist?
Or the 97% of an old guy in a gaol cell who was being monstered by the IPCC consensus of his day, who muttered ‘eppur si muove’?
Your words are hollow m0nty when you cannot back them with facts, data and science. And you have yet to provide any such science which has stood up to scrutiny on this blog.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 4:51 pm
All 1960s technologies.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 4:59 pm
Inductive reasoning, Catallaxy style.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 5:00 pm
No Gab, that’s not what I meant at all, as you well know.
If that Mark V nuclear reactor ever takes off, sharing the tech with developing countries to wean them off coal is not “arrogant” or patronising. It helps them, it helps the planet where the rest of us live, everyone wins.
m0nty
19 Jan 13 at 5:04 pm
I’d like to wean you off doughnuts. What’s my chances?
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 5:06 pm
Monster
Shut up. The wheel is 2000 years old and no one complains as it works well.
China’s nuke reactors are pretty decent. They are able to build them at around 40% of the cost in the developed world. As the cost of nuke power is derived mainly from the cost of the power plant (depreciation etc, as fuel is a small component, maintenance ….) their nuke plants are beginning to compare to coal output prices etc.
It doesn’t matter if the tech is 60′s , 30′s of 2000 years old, you plump turkey. What matters is economic efficiency.
Dunkins time for you now.
JC
19 Jan 13 at 5:09 pm
You know, the most obvious aspect of gerbil worming hysteria that’s always stuck in my craw, is that middle class, sanctimonious white western bedwetters have had the fucking gall to assume that they can tell those uppity peons in the third woild not to expect unobstructed access to such things as the white mans’ electrickery.
Cow pats will be fine for the foreseeable future, you quaint, colourful natives.
Commandeering food crops for the production of ethanol was another utterly inexcusable piece of blithe, high handed arrogance and refusal to consider inevitable consequences.
mUttley, for all the flak he’s copped above, has at least tried to pretend that he’s not on board with that agenda.
For that, I salute you, squire.
Rabz
19 Jan 13 at 5:09 pm
Gab, FFS!
Rabz
19 Jan 13 at 5:10 pm
Yeah, alright I felt mean saying that. monty, I take it back.
Gab
19 Jan 13 at 5:13 pm
Aren’t they just the fucking worst. I truly despise these bastards with my heart and soul. Gitmo is too good for them.
Lol
It’s really how they think.
In 2007, at the height of the scare and when the developed world was burning crops for ethanol kids in Haiti were eating biscuits made of dirt. Dirt! That’s because the price of grains skyrocketed.
I’m not kidding, I would make Mad Dog Brown, Tubbsie Milne, Tim Flannery, Clive Hamilton and the rest of these lowlifes eat those very same biscuits as their only option to fill their stomachs.
Look up kids eat dirt biscuits in Haiti and its there.
JC
19 Jan 13 at 5:18 pm
A bit like saying an Airbus 380 is 1940s technology, since that’s when the jet engine was invented. They’ve all moved on quite a bit since then. But if you still believe China is such a backward place requiring Australia’s technical assistance, consider Chengdu.
squawkbox
19 Jan 13 at 5:20 pm
Mind you, for all the huffing and puffing it certainly doesn’t seem to made one jot of difference, as the Chinese Coal fired power station multiplication phenomenon proves.
I wouldn’t blame them for looking down their noses at us and thinking:
“You soft, stupid, pampered pillocks – stop presuming you have a right to tell us we can’t lift ourselves out of the stone age.”
Rabz
19 Jan 13 at 5:21 pm
JC – This.
Rabz
19 Jan 13 at 5:24 pm
The cure worse than the condition, Rabz
Helen Armstrong
19 Jan 13 at 5:33 pm
yep
see here
See this from 5 years ago. The Greens ought to be seen in the same way as one looks at Nazis. Maximum contempt and total disgust.
JC
19 Jan 13 at 5:36 pm
So – he’s human after all. A wife, no less. A woman of great fortitude to be sure. She deserves a drink.
We’ve broken out the champagne in hilarity so often over your nonsense Hammy, so no-one here begrudges you a sip or two, even if your reason is like your comments, totally spurious and ridiculous. It’s good to see a fellow human being (that is right, isn’t it?) living a little.
But Hammy, isn’t there something wrong with drinking champagne? From what you tell us, Nanny Roxon will be after you with her standard glass measure with all sorts of threats. You know you should protect your liver and what little there is of your brain and desist. Plus it’s from France. Think of the alcohol miles in that. And the noise pollution of the popping corks? Plus they are dangerous missiles – guns have nothing on being in the way of one of those suckers expertly directed. And all those CO2 bubbles?
Hey, how can you, Hammy, you evil man? You should reform.
All our champagne talk is having a bad effect on your robotics.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
19 Jan 13 at 5:44 pm
jumpnmcar
19 Jan 13 at 5:47 pm
Then there are the 23 coal plants that Germany is building. And here I thought Germany was the pin up menschen of the Greens.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 5:57 pm
Bruce
Germany was questioned about those proposed coal plants. Their argument is that because these plants would be covered by the Cap&trade program they see no problem.
So set up a cap&trade, set the cost of the credits really low by flooding the market with ample credits and then some while pretending I’m holier than thou and sermonize to others.
That’s euroweenieland.
JC
19 Jan 13 at 6:03 pm
I keep saying the Greens should be in the dock in The Hague. Not the ballot paper.
But you all knew that.
Winston Smith
19 Jan 13 at 6:04 pm
m0nty’s comment “… We have to take the lead and through our scientific developments help them moderate their emission spikes …” is not only arrogant but also ridiculously deluded.
manalive
19 Jan 13 at 6:07 pm
We may wind up tapping on the door of the Chinese asking them if they would kindly share next generation nuclear power generation with us:
The PRC can of course throw a lot of budget at white elephants. But they seem to have a very grounded view about ensuring they have the energy resources to support their growth trajectory – and therefore I would not dismiss their ambitions in the thorium arena without good reason.
Myrddin Seren
19 Jan 13 at 6:08 pm
The Chinese can feed thorium reactors with thorium byproduct from their REE and mineral sands industries. No imports required. Its the only energy option for them where this is the case.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 6:13 pm
Thanks Monty, keep up the good work!
Poor Old Rafe
19 Jan 13 at 6:15 pm
monty is hanging out for ZPE to come on tap.
cohenite
19 Jan 13 at 6:17 pm
Does Australia have Thorium?
Yes we do.
jumpnmcar
19 Jan 13 at 6:20 pm
Jumpnmcar – The sand miners throw it away. Less than worthless because of the radioactivity problem, so they let it go back into their pit with the spoil.
Lots too in the REE area, which we have plenty of.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 6:24 pm
Bruce
Radioactive problems compared to uranium ?
I am asking from a position of zero knowledge of radioactivity in either raw material.
jumpnmcar
19 Jan 13 at 6:44 pm
Neither Th nor U are much of a problem really. You need to sit on a drum full of yellowcake for a week for you to get close to your annual limit of 5 mSv/a – which is tiny in the scheme of things. 5 mSv/a is about what a 747 pilot gets each year and every year.
The rad limits are ultra cautious as you might expect, and all assume the linear no threshold model.
Don’t eat it and don’t breath the dust, Th is mainly an alpha emitter.
The monazite concentrate from a sand mining operation can run up to 7% Th by weight, and they don’t wear anything other than the usual overalls & fluoros.
A Th reactor is a different fish however as you are fissioning it into daughter isotopes, which are hot. I haven’t read up on Th reactors so I don’t know the rad issues with them.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 7:06 pm
Gas mantles after ashing are about 99% ThO2 1% Y2O3. They are still available I think.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 7:11 pm
Germany
There are actually two good linkies embedded in the thread.
Green dreams
Tricky bit – utilisation of a nuclear plant probably runs to about ~ 90% ?
Wind – output is dependent on — the wind !
As ever, effective output is NOT the same as nameplate capacity.
And then of course in the regime of ever-spiralling energy costs, people are reverting to whatever works, as above.
Myrddin Seren
19 Jan 13 at 7:15 pm
Hey thanks Bruce.
jumpnmcar
19 Jan 13 at 7:37 pm
And also, by the way, don’t try this at home.
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 7:39 pm
Bruce, much fun to be had with a scintillometer and gas lamps – the mantles are mucho active
as you noted above. Tends to unnerve some people.
Louis Hissink
19 Jan 13 at 7:49 pm
Thorium is a goer and there have been several operating plants.
For the amount of money this witless government is putting into the renewables, which don’t work, Australia could have a viable Thorium powered grid.
cohenite
19 Jan 13 at 7:54 pm
Could probably have even more fun with smoke detectors. Americium 241. Actual transuranic nuclear physics in all our homes. Cool!
Bruce
19 Jan 13 at 8:02 pm
Following the 7.15 link on German skepticism this is another account of a German skeptic taking on the local warmies.
Poor Old Rafe
19 Jan 13 at 8:22 pm
For the amount of money this witless government is putting into the renewables, which don’t work, Australia could have a viable Thorium powered grid.
Or of course we could have close to the world’s cheapest electricity by optimising our usage of coal-fired generation of power.
Cold-Hands
19 Jan 13 at 8:58 pm
Cohenite,
Exciting as it might seem, thorium isn’t the panacea it might appear. The problem with energy is that to be useful it needs to be portable.
All said and done, nuclear, coal, Hydro and solar electrical generating plants can only operate efficiently in a static environment such as urban areas. These energy sources cannot, however, supply energy to machines used to explore new areas, since by definition exploration, in its widest sense, is bereft of any energy infrastructure.
So the use of hydrocarbon based machines to propel humans to undeveloped areas isn’t possible if the extraction of those fuels is prohibitive.
Hydrocarbon fuel is intrinsically portable and allows us to power machines almost anywhere, provided we have sufficient volumes of fuel at the right places in order to replenish our supplies.
If we had a static, industrialised and planned civilizational superstructure, then energy planning might work, but if history, whether recent, or geological is any guide, that is utopian.
The real problem is the belief that hydrocarbons are recycled biosphere. That belief fuels the plate tectonic belief, but neither ideas are sustainable empirically. That’s the stumbling block to any advances in this area.
Louis Hissink
19 Jan 13 at 9:36 pm
Bruce:
Uh-oh….
Mk50 of Brisbane
19 Jan 13 at 9:43 pm
The alternative to having energy available to explore is not having it, and to then have to put up with physical boredom as a consequence. Much intellectual mischief might be created and one wonders why Karl Marx wrote what he did, at the time. Boredom?
Louis Hissink
19 Jan 13 at 9:48 pm
Louis
True, true.
That said, it’s the grid which underlies our civilisation. We could work-around an actual shortage of portable fuel. Not prettily, nor easily, but the civilisation would still work just fine.
But without the grid out civilisation drops, shot through the heart.
Naturally, the last 20 years has seen idiot politicians ignore this fact completely, and now the emergency capacity of the grid is declining sharply.
Six new coal fired power stations need to be built yesterday.
As for portable fuels, we are just at the start of the hydrocarbon era, and have barely scratched the surface of what’s out there.
Mk50 of Brisbane
19 Jan 13 at 9:48 pm
I pay a lot of money for non-portable electricity, mostly coming from the NSW coal fired system. Although portable energy is generally more useful for transport, non-portable energy is a big part of what we use.
With abundant, cheap electricity, you can make all the hydrocarbon fuels you need for special cases such as exploration (not the most efficient option, but always an option).
Also, battery technology is coming along slowly but steadily, it has improved and will continue to do so. There’s enormous commercial incentive just from the mobile device market, to drive battery technology.
Tel
19 Jan 13 at 11:05 pm
Alice is on the wagon
Bill Qosters
19 Jan 13 at 11:14 pm
Tel,
I’m into gadgets and battery power is one hell of an issue.
The second bitch with technology is display screens; yesterday I collected my lunch from my Vietnamnese provider, and stopped to allow a young fellow to pass, absorbed reading his Kindle. In bright daylight. One of the biggest complaints we in the exploration industry have is not having portable computers that have readable screens in bright daylight but book readers are easily supplied with the technology. Sure it’s greyscale, but for FS it’s proven technology.
Mercedes Benz went through a bad patch decades ago when the sales people gained control of manufacturing; vehicle ID was, say, 350SE 6.5; which meant what – a 3.5 litre engine but replaced with a 6.5 litre engine, so why not label it as a 650 SE. Sheesh. Company was close to bankruptcy until the engineers regained control. So myth has it.
So why is it uneconomical to produce a computing gadget with a daylight readable screen that is useful?
Louis Hissink
19 Jan 13 at 11:50 pm
Louis, what about junk keyboards, FFS? Everyone has a computer but we’re being forced to use stupid keyboards with tiny keys, poor key response and a virtual absence of fast editing software which makes typing errors COMPULSORY and editing a time-consuming drag. Don’t get me started. My pet subject and my pet hate.
Tom
20 Jan 13 at 12:00 am
But how is it compared to 10 and 20 years ago? Much better now in my observation.
Agree, the Kindle screen would make a good laptop screen for certain markets (people outdoors mostly). There is one laptop that does this already, which is the olpc and although they don’t specifically target the mining industry, they probably should think about it. Their screen is a hybrid with a kindle-style black and white hi-resolution layer and a regular LCD style low-resolution colour layer. I saw one about five years ago, so they are probably better now.
http://one.laptop.org
Also, their case is rugged, they sell a lot into Africa and to some extent outback Australia too. Annoyingly, they seem to have their own direction and not interested in spinning off franchises for specialists like yourself. I’m told they are somewhat stubborn people to deal with, but you never know your luck.
Personally I don’t like their software much (with the proviso that I haven’t seen it recently), but to be fair, I’m far away from their target market. Their hardware is not “locked” as far as I know, different software could fairly easily be loaded.
For that matter, you know it is possible to reload third party applications onto the Kindle? Not officially approved of course, and if you want to go that way, probably buy a second Kindle to tinker with from some ebay second-hand seller.
Tel
20 Jan 13 at 12:21 am
I use a 20 year old Compaq keyboard myself. Works fine.
Tel
20 Jan 13 at 12:23 am
Tom,
Interesting point. Keyboards I understand, because I spent some serious money getting an1 IBM type one last year (DAS) which had the physical click click of the original ones. No such luck, but thought the DAS one isn’t all that bad, but because its plastic it’s also no Cadillac keyboard either. Oh for the original IBM keyboard!
As for error correcting, that’s a useful function but I wish I knew how to control the grammatical error advisories, as well, as the spelling ones. In the old days that information would be found in the win.ini file.
Louis Hissink
20 Jan 13 at 12:27 am
Tel, Kindles are $100 so they are petty cash items, but appreciate your advice.
As far as Africa is concerned there is no computer that if K-Proof. Sorry, but them’s the facts. Actually I might be able to find local examples as well.
It’s basically coping with people who don’t think abstractly, them, and we, who do.
Louis Hissink
20 Jan 13 at 12:34 am
Louis has a good point.
One reason why I like and use a Kindle is the battery charge lasts weeks.
A colour screen tab only lasts a day on a charge.
We’ve seen some of the problems with high charge batteries this week with the 787 battery fires. So upping the energy density even more may not help things.
But a methanol fuel cell same size as an iPad battery could keep it going for a week. And be refueled in 30 seconds. Carrying a few methanol cartridges in your pocket would extend the lifetime to a month.
I’m not sure where portable methanol fuel cell development is at, but this is a tech which is eminently doable.
Only in America, Mk50, only in America. Strange country.
Bruce
20 Jan 13 at 7:56 am
We’ll reconvene here next week to debate the meaning of Perth recording 50 C, Rafe. The Catallaxy position will involve Elvis, the moon landings and crop circles.
m0nty
20 Jan 13 at 9:25 am
Queensland has had below average temperatures through 2012 and into 2013, according to the BOM.
It’s very pleasant weather indeed up here these days.
candy
20 Jan 13 at 10:01 am
By chance, I caught Sir Paul Nurse’s Attack on Science on cable yesterday. Nurse is president of the royal society.
In exploring why people were unwilling to accept the word of science, Nurse interviewed James Delingpole.
After agreeing that science does not proceed on the basis of consensus, Nurse asked Delingpole why he rejected the scientific consensus on global warming but accepted the scientific consensus on the treatment of cancer?
Delingpole said he did not accept the analogy, but was otherwise flat-footed. I suggest the following:
1. Medicine proceeds on the basis of double blind trials and other small field experiments. Control and treatment groups are used. Medicine is not perfect as was the case with the misdiagnosis of the causes of stomach ulcers.
2. The lag between cause and effect are short as would be the case if you rejected emergency treatment after a car accident or cancer treatment.
3. Medicine tests the efficacy of invasive treatments, weighs side-effects and encourages adaptation and prevention. The best way to prevent my bad back is regular exercise and adapting to my new limits. Drugs are used sparingly.
4. The staying power of self-interest in medicine is well-known: much higher rates of surgery when there is fee for service and much lower rates of surgery if the patient is a doctor’s wife. The efforts of the medical profession to suppress new entry to inflate their own incomes are well-known.
Jim Rose
20 Jan 13 at 11:26 am
As far as I can see the scientific consensus does not favour climate alarmism, what does Nurse think IS the consensus?
As for cancer, again, what is the consensus? there are very different views about every aspect of cancer, especially the most appropriate forms of treatment for specific cancers.
The points about the time-frame and repetition of results are important.
Rafe
20 Jan 13 at 12:13 pm
Well-said. Popper would be proud.
Jim Rose
20 Jan 13 at 12:14 pm
rafe, I agree on the complexity of cancer and the value of second opinions. let’s no start on side-effects requiring people to change prescriptions repeately.
I took that low-dose aspirin for some years then my doctor said medical opinion changed on its prevention of cardiovascular disease so she no long prescribes it.
Also, as people get older, they weigh the costs of the more invasive treatments over quality of remaining life and the chance something else may befell them first.
Jim Rose
20 Jan 13 at 12:22 pm
If you did go down the path of loading alternative software onto a Kindle platform, you would very likely find the battery usage would also change, depending on the calculating requirements. Book reading is efficient because it presumes that people sit on each page for several minutes before flipping to the next page, so long periods of time involve no calculation at all.
You might also notice that Kindle screens are slow to update and while updating they display some sort of static that finally resolves itself into a proper screen. Any sort of animation, or video, or similar rapid update is impossible on this style of display.
Probably for a lot of applications, that sort of thing doesn’t matter, but it isn’t entirely a free lunch, there are trade offs involved.
Tel
20 Jan 13 at 12:27 pm
Rafe, I should add that my dad was a doctor. One reason he became a GP was he was good at diagnosis. Some are better than others at solving riddles.
The uncertainty of diagnosis was confirmed to me when I was at university.
When recovering from the second round of surgery, I was sent along the medical student final exam as a test patient.
after many months of treatment, I knew what I had, but they did not.
The variety in the diagnosis they described to the examiner – who was my specialist – surprised me
My brother’s post retirement job is as an actor in a medical school. He has a few medical problems of his own. In both cases, there is much variance in the speed and accuracy of diagnosis of the medical students.
Jim Rose
20 Jan 13 at 12:34 pm
rafe, from http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/health-care-uncertainty-and-morality/
Ken Arrow in 1963 concluded that virtually all the special features of the medical care industry could
Arrow went on to say that:
1. physicians may not agree on the medical condition causing the symptoms the patient presents.
2. even if physicians agree in their diagnoses, they often do not agree on the efficacy of alternative responses — for example, surgery or medical management for lower-back pain.
3. Third, information on diagnosis and likely consequences of treatment are asymmetrically allocated between providers and patients. The reason patients seek advice and treatment in the first place is that they expect physicians to have vastly superior knowledge about the proper diagnosis and efficacy of treatment.
That makes the market for medical care deviate significantly from the benchmark where buyers and sellers would be equally well informed.
Uncertainty and asymmetry of information about the quality of goods or services is ubiquitous in economies that trade highly complex goods and services.
Nurse – great biologist – can be forgiven for not knowing the economics of health care.
Jim Rose
20 Jan 13 at 12:46 pm
May dad became a GP after a fifteen year career in surgery, commencing as an Army Field Surgeon in New Guinea in WWII.
I’d be fairly certain extensive experience in surgery would help sharpen one’s diagnostic skills.
Rabz
20 Jan 13 at 4:02 pm
Cohenite
This link will give up to date data on abiotic oil theory and all sorts of information about hydrocarbons. It’s open file and anything might be republished providing the proper citations are given.
It is the death knell for Biotic oil and peak oil.
It was published last week and should also demolish the CAGW belief too. An interesting chapter is number 2 on mud volcanoes and methane. Crikey moses I had no idea these things were so common – dwarves anything humanity can come up with.
Louis Hissink
20 Jan 13 at 4:17 pm
“Nurse – great biologist – can be forgiven for not knowing the economics of health care.”
I wonder how much he knows about climate science and the politics of the IPCC?
I thought that the scientific consensus was about 1 degree of warming over the next 80 or 100 years, maybe, unless we are going into a cooling cycle.
Rafe
20 Jan 13 at 5:32 pm
I’d be fairly certain extensive experience in surgery would help sharpen one’s diagnostic skills.
It’s an interesting perspective that probably holds deeper than most people think. I had a significant shoulder injury from a skiing fall and after I had all the imaging and initial assessment I was referred to the specialist. When I offered him all the assessments I had done, he declined and only took the imagery. He said he usually didn’t worry about the assessments done by other people (including the GP) because they were often wrong or of little value. He’d had 30 years of looking at the imagery and then going in himself in surgery and seeing what that really looked like and really meant. He said you couldn’t get an accurate perspective of what things really meant unless you had seen the real thing yourself.
John Mc
20 Jan 13 at 5:40 pm
why the lack of drum-beat about a next ice age? can’t blame humanity for it, I suppose.
Jim Rose
20 Jan 13 at 6:53 pm
rafe, The disarmingly amiable Sir Paul Nurse is an expert in genetics, not climatology.
For some reason, his meeting with Professor Fred Singer was in a coffee shop to discuss his view how temperature fluctuations correlated better with solar activity than with levels of CO2.
those Nurse agreed were met at their NASA office and were allowed to use many TV screens on a big wall showing actual and predicted global cloud cover as props.
The worst part was when he said FOI requests are “a tool to intimidate some scientists”. They should have put the data on their web site to save on the compliance costs of democratic accountability. I thought releasing data was central to replication?
Calls for no more politicized science are an argument against democracy. Both the Left and Right do it – everything from GMOs and nuclear energy to evolution.
His 2012 Dimbleby lecture is at http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/people/fellows/2012-02-29-Dimbleby.pdf where he calls for a re-opening the debate about GM crops based on scientific facts and analysis:
Sound fellow in his own area.
Jim Rose
21 Jan 13 at 11:39 am
Probably a very valid argument for one place in which democracy should be limited.
Science and religion are both belief systems, so politics and democracy should be the result of belief, not the other way around. When politics becomes the cause of belief you are heading toward collective insanity.
Tel
21 Jan 13 at 11:44 am
LOL, Louis is still pushing the abiotic oil crank theory. Kutcherov is still a clown and his papers mean nothing without proven discoveries of reserves. Shale oil has solved the problem for the time being.
m0nty
21 Jan 13 at 12:16 pm
There is Christopher Robert and Richard Zeckhauser‘s taxonomy of disagreement:
Positive disagreements can be over questions of:
1. Scope: what elements of the world one is trying to understand
2. Model: what mechanisms explain the behaviour of the world
3. Estimate: what estimates of the model’s parameters are thought to obtain in particular contexts
Values disagreements can be over questions of:
1. Standing: who counts
2. Criteria: what counts
3. Weights: how much different individuals and criteria count
Any positive analysis will tend to include elements of scope, model, and estimation, though often these elements intertwine; they frequently feature in an implicit or undifferentiated manner.
Likewise, normative analysis will also include elements of standing, criteria, and weights, whether or not these distinctions are recognized.
science fits in in a small way in this taxonomy and the weight given to its advice is a political question
Jim Rose
21 Jan 13 at 1:02 pm
“When politics becomes the cause of belief you are heading toward collective insanity.”
Yes, as demonstrated by the IPCC-driven scam of climate alarmism.
Laframbose pointed out that all the IPCC leadership is politically appointed, then they recruit the scientists and ecological activists.
Rafe
21 Jan 13 at 4:50 pm
Rafe, any international experts panel is political in nature. Nurse should know that.
Jim Rose
21 Jan 13 at 9:13 pm
Jim wrote, a day or two ago “I should add that my dad was a doctor. One reason he became a GP was he was good at diagnosis. Some are better than others at solving riddles.”
When I was in health services research I saw a very interesting paper which reported a negative relationship between good diagnosis and the number of questions or “readings” that the doctor used.
My Popperian interpretation was that the good ones very quickly identify the ball park and then ask questions or get information that rapidly eliminate whole clusters of candidates. Less confident diagnosticians will ask questions that only duplicate information already in hand and so don’t eliminate any contenders.
Rafe
21 Jan 13 at 9:25 pm
rafe, do not be too quick off the mark on looking again.
someone I know was initially diagnosed as a heart attack. Then the doctors decided it was not. There were many tests and reviews of the heart imagery.
After looking at the heart images one last time before his discharge after 10 days in hospital, the doctors worked out it was a thickening of the heart wall.
That programme House has some basis in doctors being detectives.
Jim Rose
25 Jan 13 at 11:22 pm
The southern hemisphere’s temperature data show the weather is definitely cooling except after the start of forest firestorms. After these fires get going, the mercury climbs into the 40s at Sydney’s Observatory Hill near the Opera House. Ever-worsening firestorms started in the 1920s in Australia. AND, it was only then that Observatory Hill got temperatures in the 40s and only on the days after the fires started kicking out mammoth-hot walls of fire -1600 deg C. Firestorms put out the energy of around one Hiroshima bomb about every two square kilometres. Humans & native fauna and flora do not stand a chance when fires burn this hot. 1100 deg C kills trees. These fires are so hot that without protective clothing, you will die in a few minutes if you are 120m away. Records at Observatory Hill began began in 1859 and it is only after the policy changes resulting in high fuel loads in 1919 that the trend for firestorms began. It is a Green self-fulfilling prophecy. The GW lobby has a lot to lose so is fighting to the very last man, woman and child, pity about the rest of us and all the numbats, bilbies and pygmy possums getting in the way. The Green/Labor GW lobby has attracted considerable investment in carbon trading and large amounts of money hang in the balance if the truth gets out until GW loses credibility enough for these investments to go under. Also hanging in the balance is a lot of jobs for Greens and Labor political apparatchiks. Strangely, firestorms’ incineration of the bush puts somewhere approaching the nation’s carbon footprint into the air in one hit. The high levels of carbon (as opposed to CO2) cause wild weather, which is just what happens after firestorms and the Greens start pointing to this weather as proof of GW. Then the vast tracts of incinerated bush become rainshadows, and bring drought and hotter days because blackened ground absorbs heat. It gives the appearance of GW, and that old tradition of well evidenced communication falls by the wayside. GW apparatchiks need firestorms, it may be their last hope to convince the public, by making it appear true.
Dr Christine Finlay
12 Mar 13 at 11:51 am