Monday, November 30, 2009

Climategate deniers - they're everywhere!

On the radio (ABC Local 612 Brisbane) this morning was a caller who branded non-believers in climate change "troglodytes". He sounded like an old-timer and so I would have imagined he had more life (and weather/climate experience), and therefore more sense.

There were also callers who were talking about Hockey and the "deniers" bringing down the Liberal party and what a catastrophe that would be - can't they see the catastrophe if the ETS is allowed to happen? It won't achieve anything to save the planet from AGW/CC, but will make many people richer, and many more poorer.

It makes me so angry.

There were those discussing the campaign of phoning and sending emails to their federal members and to senators, and whether it was "orchestrated" (the consensus was that it is some kind of conspiracy, not people raising their own concerns that this is obviously some kind of conspiracy.

So now those who don't believe in AGW/CC, or who wish to err on the side of caution, or who can patenly see that the ETS will not change a thing, who don't understand the ETS or know what the implications of this new tax will be for them (much more than $1,000 per annum to pay out), can not think for themselves?

God help us all!

18 comments:

Wand said...

I think what we have seen in Australia over the last week is the equivalent of the 'Tea Parties' associated with the recent US's town-hall meetings.

People are just fed up with the fraud. At least I hope they are.

Kaboom said...

I'm afraid that they will not start paying attention until there are heads impaled on sticks.

This lemming-like urge of the Liberal party will lead to their total annihilation, and there will be mass defections to a new conservative party.

The schism is significantly more than the 1957 Gair split. Apparently (before my time!) that captivated the nation for months!

We are only just beginning. The few by-elections coming up this wekend will be especially interesting.....

Wand said...

And if you want to read a little more preposterous ('ANC') garbage, I recommend this piece by Alan Kohler in today's Business Spectator.

So, We are now reaping the consequences of not taking the Kyoto Protocols seriously enough; 12 years later we still have 85 per cent of our electricity generated by coal, a lot of it brown coal, and coal remains our largest export.

What is this man suggesting that we ought to have changed to whole base for electricity generation in this country? In case he hasn't noticed, we do not as yet live in a command economy so there is no mechanism to make this type of change happen. Beyond that it seems just a little far fetched that power generators would start investing / building gas power stations, nuclear power stations, wind farms and other stuff. Well I have news for Kohler - nuclear power generation is prevented by legislation in Austalia and except for gas all the other energy types are intermittent and require base load backup. Oh yes and gas costs at least twice that of coal.

His whole argument is drivel and shows no understanding of business economics and none whatsoever of the energy supply industry.

Such it seems is the nature of the ABC.

Kaboom said...

Hmm, that's interesting, as I (had) a reasonable amount of respect for Kohler as an economist, with a simple, level-headed approach.

The man is a fucking idiot.

I'd suspect that he has invested rather heavily in Turbull's view of the future.

Turnbull's view, given that he is ex Goldman Sach, is Goldman Sach's view!

A brief history here:
Rolling Stone aricle

I am still uncertain as to the veracity of this story, but the fact that it has beeen out there since July speaks volumes!

Wand said...

Kaboom,

You may be right. As I see it there is only one way out of this mess for the Libs.

It is to refer the ETS to another Senate Committee.

Elect a new leader - problematic as Bolta explained about Hockey on Insiders - apparently he has not bothered to acquaint himself with the dodgy science.

Let the Senate Committee expose (at least for the Libs) the CRU fraud which would then allow the Libs to change their policy.

Take it to the people as a policy - No ETS because it is a fraud, will cost each family dearly and a tax on everything and everything else - aka Keating and his defeat of Hewson's GST. As Bolta has pointed out, an election on this basis would be a gift for the Libs.

Anything else is suicide for the Libs as well as the nation, because presumably the ETS would be passed. I say that because the Libs will be annihilated if they go the next election with a wimpish environmental policy such as 'we support an ETS but one that will not cost quite as many jobs.'

/rant

PS - I've sent views along these lines to a number of the players. Now I wonder what will happen.

Kaboom said...

It surely is a mystery, Wand.

The trouble is the lack of debate regarding the science (or, more correctly, the lack of science!).

Even the fundamental belief that CO2 somehow acts to "trap" heat and/or some of the IR spectrum is a patent falsehood. Otherwise, it would appear that we have discovered the perfect insulation - glass panes with a layer of carbon dioxide in between!

Even a "proper" greenhouse does not act this way - heat is increased by the trapping of hot air by glass, but of course all IR spectra go straight through the glass!

Ahhrrrghh! Don't get me started on the dumbing-down of basic science!

Wand said...

Kaboom,

On the science of all this stuff there is one thing that I have found consistently irritating. Anyone who has studied some Physics would have learnt a few basic principles which include laws like:

Heat can only flow from a warm body to a cooler body.
To change ice at 0 degrees C to water at 0 degrees C requires energy and that energy is the same amount of energy that would be required to heat water from 20 degrees C to 100 degrees C (i.e., bring water at room temperature to the boil). The heat required to change water in solid form (ice) to water in liquid form at the same temperature is called the latent heat of fusion.

We are supposed to believe that increasing the temperature of the atmosphere by 1, 2 or whatever degrees C will lead to ice caps melting and so on but there is no physical mechanism by which this could occur. For starters the air temperature would have to be above freezing for any heat transfer to be possible. The heat transfer that takes place is dependent on the temperature difference so for any ‘decent’ effect to occur requires an atmospheric temperature much greater than the ice temperature. Now I haven’t bothered to check the temperature of the ice at the poles but it is way way below freezing as is the air temperature at all times so no melting could occur from the atmosphere. Ice melting occurs at the poles each year as a direct effect of the incident energy from the sun (which is closer) as anyone who has lived in a cold climate would know from simple observation of ice melting as Spring approaches. The ice will melt during the day, provided the sun is strong enough and the conditions mild and will re-freeze as soon as the sun sets. Anything else is pure bunkum, so of course no one has tried to explain the physics of 'air warming' because they cannot.

An interesting experiment is to make some ice from hot water compared to making ice from room temperature water. The hot water freezes first because a thermal flow is set up with the temperature difference. And these fucking clowns expect us to ‘believe’ in global warming. It has to be a belief because the reality is it is a fraud.

Here’s Booker’s take and curiously the article has disappeared from Google and other search engines.

I could go on and on about the dodgy science and actually wonder about the abilities / knowledge/ training of the programmers at Hadley CRU and other places. Interestingly recently I worked with a programmer who was putting together a large database that took multiple samples every couple of minutes. The collected data were then to be used in calculations that were accumulated over specific time periods. I provided the information of what was to be done with the database, the calculations to be undertaken, the default values to be applied in the absence of data, the internal checks as well as the output under specific circumstances where the input data was suspect, not available or fell outside a specific bandwidth. My point here is that the programmer did not have a clue about what he was doing, even when I supplied him with the formulas. His training did not extend to anything like the task which meant that all he was doing was playing with numbers. I accept that that is OK provided someone closely reviewed or monitored what was being done. However it does lead to another concern that I do have about education in that we are teaching knowledge which is teaching people what to think and the view they should have (according to others) whereas we should be teaching critical thinking and problem solving skills which then lead to independent thought and wisdom. The opposite of Hadley, but I winder how much different are so many other Centres of Science?


Enough - writing to too many politicians lately ..contracted something?

kae said...

Oh, come ON Wand!

You're not a climate scientist so what would you know?

/denier

Wand said...

Presumably Nothing

kae said...

Wand, I think Schultz knows more than the ClimateScam Deniers do.

They're still using that as a defence...

"Why do you take any notice of any informatio from someone who is not a climate scientist!"

While themselves listening to and lapping up the rubbish coming from Flammer et al.

It's doing my head in! How can they be so thick as to take everything that's fed to them as gospel? Listening to Wongbot drove me nuts last night. Consensus was the only justification... consensus. Everyone believes it.

Does she believe the earth is flat, 'cos that was the consensus at one time!

Wand said...

Kae,

Wong's a lawyer, Turnbull's a lawyer which I think in these circumstances is a decided disadvantage. That should not be a reason or an explanation for their inability to see another viewpoint, even though they sometimes supposedly respect another view. The issue here is that we are not dealing with a matter on the basis of balancing the evidence whereas they appear to have taken a classic legal approach and cannot see beyond their noses. Most likely I suspect they 'believe' (operative word again) that they are being eminently reasonable.

Now I think I'll look in on APAC to see how Madam Wong is shaping up.

Carpe Jugulum said...

Howdy all, i've tried to follow this debate in the senate today,(curse this working thing), the way they are dragging out the debate on the amendments it would be unlikely to be finalised this sitting year (I hope). As Wand mentioned earlier the best bet is to have this referred to a senate committee.

Kaboom said...

Wand,

Sometimes lawyers are far better logisticians than scientists.

So I have heard, anyway.

Kaboom said...

Oh, and by the way, never mention the Second Law of Thermodynamics in polite society.......

Wand said...

What a relief! The Libs are now led by an Abbot assisted by a Bishop. Now that should give the believers (of the holy AGW church) something to think about.

Wand said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wand said...

Hmmm- now could this latest story on WUWT be the death knell for Krudd's international ambitions?

Full story from Times of India

[Previous entry deleted because of spelling mistake]

Skeeter said...

Now we need to keep them focused on the CRU leaks.
Unless we keep stirring, it won't be long before that is all swept under the carpet and stomped on until it lays flat.

WV: unseater. How gloriously apt!