Fruitcakes of a Feather

December 29, 2013
Written by: Kaye Lee
70 Replies

I have been on an interesting journey through the world of climate change denial and I would like to share some of my travel highlights with you.

I started with my favourite video of well-known climate change denier and world government alarmist, Lord Christopher Monckton (a must watch if you haven’t seen it). He is the pin-up boy of the mining industry, a man whose “expert” opinion is often quoted by Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt. The meeting is in the boardroom of the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation, a free-market think-tank founded by west Australian mining magnate Ron Manners. Monckton explains how they need to control the media to achieve their goals. Interestingly, not long after this meeting took place, Gina Rinehart bought $192 million worth of shares in Fairfax (the publisher of Brisbane Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and many regional newspapers and city-based radio stations) to take her share in the company to about 14 per cent.

Monckton applauds the work of Andrew Bolt, and also Joanne Codling who is better known by her stage name, Jo Nova, which she adopted in 1998 when she was preparing to host a children’s television program. Jo Nova is married to David Evans and she and her husband joined Lord Monckton on a speaking tour in Australia in 2011. The advertising for the tour describes Nova and Evans as “leading Australian scientists” who will, along with headliner Monckton, explain how “the carbon tax will bankrupt Australia” and show how “the science does not justify it.”

Let’s start with Monckton, the third Viscount of Benchley, a hereditary title in the United Kingdom. Contrary to Monckton’s claims, he is not a member of the House of Lords in the Parliament of Britain. In fact, when Monckton persisted with the lie, the House of Lords took the unprecedented step of publishing an open letter to him, demanding that he cease and desist.

Monckton is not a scientist. He has a degree in classics and a diploma in journalism. Nevertheless, the Heartland Institute lists him as an expert with their organization, where they publish his posts on climate change. He is also a frequent speaker at the Institute’s annual International Conference on Climate Change. He is listed as a “scientist” in American Senator Inhofe’s report claiming more than 1,000 scientists disputed there’s a scientific consensus on climate change. He has TWICE been asked by Republicans to testify about climate change before committees of the U.S. Congress

Monckton is the Chief Policy Advisor to climate change denial lobby group Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI). His bio on their site stated that:

“His contribution to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 – the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise – earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate. His Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA”

When Christopher Monckton was challenged about this during a visit to Australia in early 2010 he conceded that “it was a joke, a joke” and “never meant to be taken seriously.” The Sydney Morning Herald noted that despite this, he had made the same claim with a “straight face” on the Alan Jones show one day prior, and the claim remained on the SPPI website until 2012.

He also describes himself as a “chief policy advisor” to former British PM Margaret Thatcher, and frequently introduces himself as her “chief science advisor” when interviewed by the conservative media.

Monckton has been quoted as saying “I gave her advice on science as well as other policy from 1982-1986, two years before the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was founded,” that he was “the only one who knew any science” and that “it was I who – on the prime minister’s behalf – kept a weather eye on the official science advisers to the government, from the chief scientific adviser downward.” Bob Ward in the Guardian investigated these claims and found them to be false.

Monckton claimed that he has developed a cure for Graves’ Disease, AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, the flu, and the common cold. This is no joke – he actually filed an application to patent a “therapeutic treatment” in 2009.

I could go on and on, including when he dressed up in Arabian clothes and pretended to be a delegate from Myanmar at the UN climate change talks (from which he has since been permanently banned), or when he described Professor Ross Garnaut as a fascist and said in a German accent “Heil Hitler! on we go”, or his launch of the fringe political group Rise Up Australia, or when he threatened to sue the University of Tasmania, but I think you already get my drift on the credibility of this “expert”.

Moving on to Jo Nova. Nova received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Western Australia majoring in micro and molecular biology. She also received a Graduate Certificate in Scientific Communication from the Australian National University in 1989, and went on to host children’s science shows. She loves to do the denier shuffle on her blog but seems to not care at all about the validity of her sources.

Ms Nova’s husband David Evans “attended the University of Sydney for five years from 1979 where he did science and engineering, and then spent a further five years at Stanford University at Palo Alto in California, doing a PhD in electrical engineering.” According to his biographical note, Evans rhetorically describes himself as a “Rocket Scientist”. While Evans use of the term was rhetorical, one article on a website for the conspiracy-minded took it literally and headed an article about Evans claiming “Top Rocket Scientist: No Evidence CO2 Causes Global Warming”.

Evans has made a number of claims about the role of banking institutions throughout history and subscribes to the conspiracy theory that “climate change is merely a cover for a massive power play.”

I fail to see how these two could be described as “leading Australian scientists” or what their qualifications are to join the climate change denial talk circuit as experts. This excellent article from Watching the Deniers details the claims made by Nova and Evans over the years. And they call US alarmists! Paranoia anyone?

So who pays these people to present their “expert” views? That trail leads to people like Gina Rinehart and Ron Manners, and groups like the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC), and the Galileo Movement.

The Galileo Movement was started by two retired men, one was formerly paid by mining companies and the other is a former engineer who owns an air-conditioning company. They apparently formed with the express intention of stopping the carbon tax. Alan Jones is their patron and the usual suspects are named as “expert advisers”, a list which until recently included Andrew Bolt. (When Bolt dumps you you KNOW you are out there.)

The Galileo Movement are advertising an upcoming talk by radio talkback personality John MacRae, a regular on Alan Jones show, about how banks and governments are ripping you off, and Malcolm Roberts, their project manager, who “will speak for 20 minutes on government abuse of taxpayer funding through corruption of climate science”. It seems Roberts is also heavily embroiled in the banking conspiracy theory.

So my tour has really been a circle, revisiting the same places again and again. Gina Rinehart, Lord Monckton, Andrew Bolt, Jo Nova, David Evans, Alan Jones, the Galileo Movement, Malcolm Roberts. The resources that are being devoted to this misinformation campaign are formidable. The arguments go “round, like a circle in a spiral and a wheel within a wheel.” Lies and obfuscation, cherry-picking data and repeating any claim regardless of its credibility or source.

The mad monk even appeared as a speaker with the even madder Monckton in Perth. If these are the people that our current government goes to for climate change advice, Lord save us. And I don’t mean the feathered loon variety.

Author’s note: This is one of a series of articles looking at the people who advise Tony Abbott. Others include AIMN articles, Who do you admire, Has anybody seen Tony’s envoy, Putting our First People last and Tony’s tame expert.

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nickthiwerspoonDecember 29, 2013 at 6:06 pm

Reblogged this on Nick Thiwerspoon's Rumbles.

J.loubertDecember 29, 2013 at 6:26 pm

The book merchants of doubt covers the denial movement with clarity. Scary free market fundies.

The Village Idiot (Reformed)December 29, 2013 at 6:53 pm

So what was Professor Ross Garnaut’s claim to fame as a scientist ??? He was getting paid a fortune by Gillard as a “climate scientist” on the Climate Commission. And Flannery only has a PhD in kangaroo poo !!!!!!

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 7:17 pm

Garnaut has never claimed to be a scientist, unlike the people mentioned in the article above.. He is an academic and economist and a businessman and has experience in diplomacy and policy making. This is his view expressed to the Academy of Social Sciences:

“We should think about it, because there’s a chance that the mainstream science is right. When we think about it, those of us who are not climate scientists would need reasons beyond the current state of knowledge to think anything except that they are probably right. Certainly more likely to be right than people who have not spent the months and years and decades learning the subtleties of this complex area of knowledge. I hope that we here at least — members of this other learned academy that takes seriously the development and testing and accumulation of knowledge — can agree that there is enough of a chance that the mainstream physical and biological science is broadly right, to invest in understanding the implications for human society. After all, ours is the Academy that Australians look to for knowledge on how the immense pressures that we are in the process of placing on our societies may change human life on earth.

If we thought about the respective credentials of those who line up with the mainstream science, and those who are prepared to take their chances with information from other places, we would think that this issue was at least one of the fateful public policy matters of our time.”

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 7:28 pm

Tim Flannery was a professor at Macquarie University and held the Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability. He is also chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, an international climate change awareness group

In 2007, Flannery became Professor in the Climate Risk Concentration of Research Excellence at Macquarie University. He left Macquarie University in mid-2013. Flannery is also a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and a Governor of WWF-Australia. He has contributed to over 90 scientific papers.

Flannery was an advisor on climate change to South Australian Premier Mike Rann, and a member of the Queensland Climate Change Council established by the Queensland Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation Andrew McNamara.

He wrote a book called “The Weather Makers: The History & Future Impact of Climate Change” which won international acclaim and which was honoured in 2006 as ‘Book of the Year’ at the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards.

I would suggest he was slightly more qualified than the fruitcakes of a feather that deniers like to quote.

uknowispeaksenseDecember 29, 2013 at 7:32 pm

You forgot Plimer.

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 7:35 pm

Plimer had his own whole story…see “Tony’s tame expert”

palmersaurusDecember 29, 2013 at 8:56 pm

He has no professional qualification in limate science. He has merely been a paid advocate of BS. Thanks for the list showing it !!!!!!!!

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 9:06 pm

palmersaurus, you seem to completely misunderstand the role of the Climate Change Authority. They were not funded to be a scientific research group. Their job was to be up to date and report on current scientific papers and clean energy initiatives so they could make recommendations to the government on

•emissions reduction targets and carbon budgets
•the Renewable Energy Target
•the Carbon Farming Initiative, and
•the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System.

They weren’t the people who were doing the scientific research but they were evaluating and reporting on its implications and recommending future direction.

palmersaurusDecember 29, 2013 at 9:19 pm

@Kaye Lee – and that scientific research said the rain wouldn’t fill our dams, the seas would rise to 8 storeys etc. We paid good money for those bogus forecasts that never eventuated.

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 9:25 pm

First, Flannery did not say that Australian dams will never fill again. Andrew Bolt, misrepresenting Flannery, draws attention to a Feb 2007 Landline interview with Flannery in which Flannery said:

even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

Denialists like Bolt claim that Flannery meant by this that our dams would never fill again at any time for any reason from the date Flannery was speaking. However, what Flannery was actually saying was that climate trends at the time indicated a long-term outcome of normalized water shortage consistent with IPCC projections

Flannery’s comments were to the effect that Australia was at the time currently experiencing a 60% fall in run-off going into dams due to hotter soils and greater rainfall take-up by drought-stressed vegetation and that this would be indicative of what we could eventually expect as a consistent and normal outcome in the future.

He did not say that the dams would never fill again at any time from the date he was speaking, which is the thick-as-a-brick intentionally distorted view presented by Bolt and fellow travellers. Flannery was pointing to a long-term outcome of normalized water shortage based on current data and climate trends.

Flannery’s quote in context is:

We’re already seeing the initial impacts and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

Bolt knows, but pretends not to know, that Flannery was applying IPCC modelling and projections to (then) present circumstances in relation to reduced rainfall and that Flannery’s statement are in accordance with those. Bolt also knows that IPCC projections include intensified (i.e. more severe) but rarer flooding events, which of course would fill the dams.

cuppaDecember 29, 2013 at 9:27 pm

KL,

It’s no use trying to rationalise with wingnuts. They’ve been comprehensively hoodwinked by the mainstream media, who are in turn propaganda agents of big mining and energy interests. Most wingnuts are so credulous and dense the lying RW media could tell them shit was sugar and they’d believe it. It’s embarrassing for them because they rely on a sustainable atmosphere and climate just like everyone else, yet they’ve been hoodwinked into believing that it’s not important, allow polluting enterprises to foul it without hindrance.

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 9:28 pm

25 Metre Sea Level Rise

Paterson ridicules Flannery for approvingly quoting NASA’s James Hanson on the possibility of a 25 metre sea-level rise due to catastrophic ice melt and notes that such an eventuality would take thousands of years to materialise given current melt rates.

Unfortunately Paterson does not realise that Flannery agrees that such a change could take hundreds or thousands of years to eventuate and so has misrepresented Flannery as stating 25 metre sea level rise is imminent.

Of course Hanson’s actual prediction is based on Earth’s millenia-long climate history and anticipates that timeframe for its realisation, but Paterson ignores that to pretend Hanson and Flannery is warning of an imminent, practically immediate, 25 metre rise in sea levels.

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 9:39 pm

cuppa, it is not my job to convince anyone of anything. My aim is to pass on information. Perhaps in the to and fro of trying to discredit what I am saying, and justify what they are saying, people might learn things. That would be a good result. The greatest thing I would like people to realise from this is to check the credibility of your sources and who pays them and what their motivation might be. Read outside your usual sources to see what other people think rather than being fed lines by the Heartland Institute and Larry Pickering.

Möbius EckoDecember 29, 2013 at 9:58 pm

Good read Kaye Lee, where the current funding for the denialists is coming from: Not Just Koch Brothers: New Study Reveals Funders Behind Climate Change Denial Effort

Isn’t it telling the hypocrisy of the right wingers who always go on about the proponents of AGW being in it for the money, as palmersaurus averred, and so many others, yet it’s those who are against the science and the non-scientist or specialist who are being paid vast amounts of money, far more than any of the proponents, to deliberately discredit global warming, but the right wingers don’t seem to have any problems with that.

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 10:07 pm

ME. the thing they don’t seem to realise is that any scientist who came up with credible proof against AGW would be flooded with funding from industry and big business let alone governments. Why would 97% of them pass this up?

And thank you for that link. A quote from it for those who don’t bother clicking….

“The climate change countermovement is a well-funded and organized effort to undermine public faith in climate science and block action by the U.S. government to regulate emissions. This countermovement involves a large number of organizations, including conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, trade associations and conservative foundations, with strong links to sympathetic media outlets and conservative politicians.

If you want to understand what’s driving this movement, you have to look at what’s going on behind the scenes.

“The climate change countermovement has had a real political and ecological impact on the failure of the world to act on the issue of global warming,” said Brulle. “Like a play on Broadway, the countermovement has stars in the spotlight — often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians — but behind the stars is an organizational structure of directors, script writers and producers, in the form of conservative foundations. If you want to understand what’s driving this movement, you have to look at what’s going on behind the scenes.”

To uncover how the countermovement was built and maintained, Brulle developed a listing of 118 important climate denial organizations in the U.S. He then coded data on philanthropic funding for each organization, combining information from the Foundation Center with financial data submitted by organizations to the Internal Revenue Service.

The final sample for analysis consisted of 140 foundations making 5,299 grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations from 2003 to 2010. The data shows that these 91 organizations have an annual income of just over $900 million, with an annual average of $64 million in identifiable foundation support.”

Möbius EckoDecember 29, 2013 at 10:12 pm

That’s why a Swedish study into cloud forcing got so much funding, as it was promising in explaining why the globe was warming at the rate it was. They even built a multi-million dollar cloud chamber able to produce any type of cloud.

The last I heard on this was that the study was flared in several areas and some of the warming effects couldn’t be explained by cloud forcing.

Möbius EckoDecember 29, 2013 at 10:13 pm

Sorry, bloody tablet keyboard and predictive text, “flawed” not “flared”.

allenmcmahonDecember 29, 2013 at 11:40 pm

It seems there is no nuance with regard to the debate on climate change it is either catastrophic or doesn’t exist and if you occupy the middle ground you are considered a ‘troll’ by either side.

By the middle I mean people who accept the physics that a doubling co2 for the mid 19th century to now leads to a 1c increase in temps but don’t accept that climate sensitivity is extremely high and will lead to 4-6c increase in temps or in the case of extreme skeptics negative and we are on the way to a new ice age.

In terms of a science climate is still in its infancy and there is no model that predicts high end temps. that has been validated. In fact the reverse is the case and models are now increasingly perceived as running to ‘hot’ and are being adjusted downwards. There are more than 30 climate models and these are providing a wide range of predictions but only the models in the high range are quoted as proof that we are on the road to doom.

It seems we don’t believe the MSM unless it feeds our own preconceptions and then of course its the truth we are reading. Read a few science papers and you will see there are a wide range of views and we are only being given the extremes by both sides.

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 11:45 pm

allen I have read countless scientific papers. Pretty much every argument that can be brought up is answered here. http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Yours is number 6. http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm

bighead1883December 29, 2013 at 11:45 pm

Haha,bloody brilliant.Kay.the Lunatic “Adults” in government listen to these other Adult Lunatics and those who voted LNP are even bigger Adult Lunatics for being sucked in by the head Crazy,Rupert Murdoch and his corporate media Lunatic peers.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bby4JCAIIAAfAzg.jpg?w=800&h=364

Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 11:58 pm

I feel like that joke about monks who had lived together for a lifetime. One monk would say 47 and they all would laugh. Then another would say 13, more laughter. When a visitor asked what was going on, they explained that they all knew each other’s jokes so had numbered them to save time.

It’s the same with AGW. Every argument against it has been tested and disproved. Dedicated people have collated all the information with references to scientific peer-reviewed articles. I have referred to that page and its links so many times that I am starting to say myth 12 stick to the basic answer, or myth 45, you may want to look at the advanced version.

The fact that we are still having this discussion is like groundhog day.

little guyDecember 30, 2013 at 12:49 am

I shudder to think what sort of world we are leaving future generations.They will look back to this time and label the people of the western world as the most selfish,greedy and morally coprrupt people to ever grace this beautiful planet.

M. R.December 30, 2013 at 5:24 am

The thing I don’t actually get is how climate change became a representation of the political divide – well, if you can accept that the guvmint is a political party and not just a rabble of wicked children …

Möbius EckoDecember 30, 2013 at 6:57 am

M.R. it became a political divide by George W Bush, who in government used the same PR company hired by Big Tobacco a decade or so earlier to discredit smoking causes cancer and then secondary smoking causes cancer.

After they did their work to froth up the wingnuts and deliberately muddy the waters by hiring speakers and any scientists they could pay enough, the same tactic they used for Tobacco, the big boys like the Koch brothers and ExxonMobile etc. poured vast sums in to discredit the growing science, and they set up think tanks, some disguised as scientific institutions.

As these were wholly right wing, and as studies have shown and is well known, right wingers mindlessly follow whatever they are told by the right, it rapidly became an ideological issue for them, but not for the left as much as the right wingers would like to believe it is.

There are enough left, centre and non-politically aligned people around the world for the deliberate muddying tactics by the right on what is a very complicated science to leave them at the minimum in a little doubt as to the validity of the science, which is what the vested interests want.

It’s all about delaying actions for as long as possible so their huge profits can keep rolling in unabated and they don’t have to outlay an extra cent to do anything to stop polluting. In other words as it always is with the right, it’s all about greed.

patsyDecember 30, 2013 at 7:30 am

if rhinehart is such a fabulous person why doesn’t she buy some shares in the poor and homeless of this her country which she is raping with her mining and taking what belongs to us all…..the richer she gets the more homeless and poor will become countless…….and dolt and jones well they are only weeds but are fast taking over……murdochs mutual admiration society…….shame on them all and abbott is supposed to be a good Christian …well he is the largest weed of all….

Terry2December 30, 2013 at 9:03 am

If you can control the media message you certainly can influence the thinking of some sectors of our community.

For instance, Greg Hunt and Tony Abbott have been dominant with their message when it comes to carbon pricing and their central message is that Australian families will save on average $550 p.a. on their electricity bill once the carbon tax has been repealed. My most recent electricity bill (from Ergon) has a notice, in red print, saying that :

” the carbon price and renewable energy target add about $259 a year to a typical 6.3 MWh household bill”

So, where is the media scrutiny and clarification of these mixed messages ?

Then you have the abolition of the school kids bonus ($400 primary and $800 secondary) which is still is battling its way through the Senate. Within my own family and circle of friends who have kids at school and who have significant additional expenses for uniforms, deposit on Laptops, extra-curricular activities, sports, trips & outings etc, the general consensus is that the carbon tax – which has already been compensated – is not as great an impact on family budgets as the loss of the bonus.

Again, the media have turned off and the government have been able to get away with a campaign of misinformation and deception.

joy cooperDecember 30, 2013 at 9:51 am

Strangely Rupert Murdoch says one thing here about climate change & his rags spruik the climate change denial message yet he says something completely different overseas.

Here is a link to a statement he made extolling the virtues of reducing one’s carbon footprint & bragging about News Corpse’s Global Energy Initiative.

http://gei.21cf.com/archive/GEI%20Launch%20Report.pdf

Dow Jones, a company owned by News Corpse, also was bragging about its use of renewable energy in its headquarters, even had a brochure telling all about this, but, now also strangely, that info has become difficult to find.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:04 am

Interesting link joy. I love this line from Murdoch….

“Addressing climate change is good business practice. We will improve the bottom line by cutting energy costs and investing in renewable resources. We will motivate our employees. We will excite our audiences. And we will demonstrate our continued ability to anticipate the future and lead our industry.”

Does he not read or listen to his own media?

New research out of the US has provided evidence of the “misleading” reporting of climate change by News Corporation. The report, Is News Corp. Failing Science, written by the Union of Concerned Scientists, looked into representations of climate change at Fox News and The Wall Street Journal over a period of six and 12 months respectively.

Out of 40 mentions of climate change on Fox News, 37 were determined to be misleading, or 93% of stories. The reporting in The Wall Street Journal (researchers looked at the opinion section) was slightly more accurate; 81% of stories were considered misleading.

Wendy Bacon from the Centre of Independent Journalism and the University of Technology Sydney reported that News Ltd had presented highly biased coverage of the federal Government’s carbon pricing package. She stated:

“Negative coverage [of the carbon price] across News Ltd newspapers far outweighed positive coverage with 82% compared to 18% positive articles. This indicates a very strong stance against the carbon policy adopted by the company that controls most Australian metropolitan newspapers, and has 70% of Australian newspaper circulation.”

Bacon’s research found that this coverage was systematic across News Ltd papers, with The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun being standouts.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 9:12 am

I fully agree terry2. It’s all about the message control

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:24 am

Before you start calling people fools you may want to get your info from somewhere OTHER than the Murdoch press palmersaurus.

In 2007, journalist Ken Auletta spent a great deal of time with Rupert Murdoch while writing a magazine profile of him. Auletta observed that Murdoch was frequently on the phone to his editors and this prompted him to ask: “of all the things in your business empire, what gives you the most pleasure?” Murdoch instantly replied: “being involved with the editor of a paper in a day-to-day campaign…trying to influence people”.

After the 2010 election – which resulted in a minority Labor government – Murdoch summoned his Australian editors and senior journalists to his home in Carmel, California. He made clear that he despised the Gillard government and wanted regime change. In 2011, Murdoch met Abbott and told his editors he liked him. His newspapers (a couple of which had actually supported Gillard in the 2010 election) thereafter campaigned strongly against the Gillard government, particularly on the issues of asylum seekers and climate change.

Murdoch’s overt interference in the 1975 campaign was so bad that reporters on the Australian went on strike in protest and seventy-five of them wrote to their boss calling the newspaper ‘a propaganda sheet’ and saying it had become ‘a laughing stock’ (Wright 1995). ‘You literally could not get a favourable word about Whitlam in the paper. Copy would be cut, lines would be left out,’ one former Australian journalist told Wright’ (1995).

~ Tony Wright, ‘On the Wrong Side of Rupert’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 October 1995.

To go on strike over wages and conditions is one thing understood by all, but for 109 journalists to go on strike during a Federal election campaign is indicative of just how bad the editorial interference was.

joy cooperDecember 30, 2013 at 10:26 am

palmersaurus, you sir are the fool. Of course, Rupert Murdoch is a complete hands-on controller of his news empire. Remember he sent his right hand man Col Allan to Australia from New York to oversee the election campaign being run by his Australian newspapers. Kim Williams “resigned” & the more moderate Courier Mail editor was replaced.

Rupert Murdoch is a complete & utter hypocrite. You have obviously not seen his anti-climate change tweets or the blatant directions tweeted to his Aussie editors. How you can excuse this foreign meddling-in-our-affairs monster is beyond me.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:38 am

I wonder if you are aware that we have a Guardian Australia that employs fine Australian journalists such as Lenore Taylor to comment on Australian news. It also gives us access to world news, though I realise that may not interest you.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:41 am

palmersaurus, don’t you think the funding from industry for scientists who could disprove global warming would be more of a drawcard than fighting for government grants? I ask again, why are all climate scientists passing up this veritable treasure trove of virtually unlimited funds from fossil fuel companies?

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:43 am

You DO realise of course that the submissions to the IPCC were voluntary whilst the opinions expressed by the Heartland Institute and affiliated bodies are paid for by billionaires with vested interests?

joy cooperDecember 30, 2013 at 10:48 am

Palmersaurus = RWNJ troll who ignores all points made because it doesn’t want to admit it is a total Murdoch-influence fool with no mind of its own.

John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 11:04 am

I'm impressed with the extreme right wing evangelists "Commenting" here.

Not with what they post …. talk about flogging Black Caviar's brother.

No, i'm impressed that they have the time and resources.

Not your everyday backyard protester … more a concerted effort.

Keep up the workload I say.

Makes for a good laugh at the end of what was a year with very few laughs …. unless of course you count this :

AnomanderDecember 30, 2013 at 11:16 am

There is little point presenting volumes of facts to trolls like palmersaurus because his mind is already set in concrete and no amount of evidence will sway the opinion given to him by the Merde-och press. All he will do is become even more obnoxious – calling everyone lefties or luvvies or fools – this is the modus operandi of the “right-eous”.

The more cold, hard evidence you present to people like this, the more rigid and entrenched their beliefs become because “belief” is absolutely fundamental to their entire ideology. Because, to prove one piece wrong shatters the whole edifice, so their only choice is to defend it even more strenuously.

They present no opposing evidence, because there is none to present – they rely instead upon anecdote and simplistic phrases, repeated ad-infinitum, believing that shouting loud enough or offending those who disagree with their view, is a way to prove their point.

John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 11:27 am

I wonder if "palmersaurus" has bothered reading this …. in relation to "foreign meddling" :

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/abbott-open-for-business-and-multinational-lawsuits/700/

"palmersaurus" ? …… a coincidence that "Rosebud" Murdoch's Courier Mail has an unhealthy obsession with Clive Palmer.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 11:28 am

I agree Anomander, but other people read the comments. If they learn something then good. I think the contrast between commenters is an informative thing within itself.

Möbius EckoDecember 30, 2013 at 12:10 pm

I think the gormless right wing trolls are doing a great job here. They are getting us to get out the facts or research new facts and store them for use against other right wing trolls and in topics showing how terrible Abbott is and that this is the worst government we have ever had.

Facts after all are the one thing that brings down a right wing troll and shows up this incoherent government.

AnomanderDecember 30, 2013 at 12:14 pm

I understand entirely Kaye and I thoroughly commend your considerable efforts to provide accurate, robust facts that counter the lies, propaganda and misinformation propagated by the denialist trolls.

Please keep-up the great work.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 12:43 pm

palmersaurus, you have been given a free run here, unlike what we are given if we go to a right wing site where we are promptly gagged and our comments removed. I have an edit facility. Don’t make me use it. Put your case without personal abuse and preferably without vulgarity or I will delete your comments. I would also remind you about the defamation laws in this country.

John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 12:51 pm

Not only does "palmersaurus" associate with child abusers he also carries on like one of them.

Humbly suggest you stop reading the American "Rosebud" Murdoch's trash.

They know even less about Palmers business than you do.

And keep away from schoolchildren.

diannaartDecember 30, 2013 at 12:55 pm

palmersaurus

I could not read beyond “This is where you leftards bugger it up…”

Perhaps you would have more success with your point of view if you simply refrained from beginning with and continuing on with insults throughout whatever it is you are trying to say… just a suggestion, of course, if you truly believe you can gain people’s support by insulting them, all I can do is wish you good luck… denigrating people has never won people over before, but who knows? You may be the first.

uknowispeaksenseDecember 30, 2013 at 1:18 pm

and that is why I no longer allow comments from trolls on my blog. I used to subscribe to the idea that rebutting trolls with facts is a good way to demonstrate to any lurkers the differences between ignorance and evidence, but in the end, all you end up doing is feeding the troll and motivating them and still putting their point of view in the public domain. In the words of one of my favourite performers, Tim Minchin, “Just because your ideas are tenacious doesn’t mean that they’re worthy.” If lurkers are visiting to find evidence, why give them unworthy crap?

Trolls like palmersaurus thrive on the attention and time you give them. Stop feeding them.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 1:20 pm

Au contraire palmersaurus. It is entirely up to you whether you will be allowed to continue posting. I am very pleased to debate but I do not want a slanging match, nor do I want a gossip column. If you read it on Pickering’s page then there is a fair bet that I won’t be interested, though I did agree with him about child slapping.

If you would care to debate in a civil way then you are welcome to contribute. Most people here like to learn things so providing links to your sources often helps. It will also help assess the credibility of your information. So far I haven’t learned anything from you….surprise me with something thoughtful that you haven’t been fed by people like Bolt and Pickering and Jones.

uknowispeaksense, I liked cornie’s version. It’s like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how well you play chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over the pieces, shit on the board, and strut around like a victor.

uknowispeaksenseDecember 30, 2013 at 1:29 pm

It’s difficult to demonstrate the rules of chess to a novice when there’s pigeon shit on the board. Said my bit. Not my blog. 🙂

Möbius EckoDecember 30, 2013 at 1:32 pm

I think all of my comments to date have been accurate – yet fellow contributors have ignore the facts stated therein.

He thinks they are, doesn’t know they are because here are no sources or links to back them up apart from the occasional throw to a right wing source that in itself doesn’t provide any evidence.

And the contributors herein provide fact after fact, more often than not with sources and references, yet the visitor ignores all the facts stated within this blog that doesn’t conform to their narrow minded distorted view of what a fact is.

It’s a two way street, not the one way going down the wrong way the visitor wants to drive us down.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 1:42 pm

First rule for novice chess players,

Learn to recognise and avoid the pigeon shit.

John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 2:28 pm

Ha ha ha …. poor sad little "palmersaurous" doesn't like being verballed.

But he and his mate "David" went along boots and all with Murdoch, Jones and Bolt when they did it to a Prime Minister of Australia.

"“There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,” conveniently leaving out the part after the comma, where she goes on to say “but lets be absolutely clear. I am determined to price carbon”.

I pity people like "palmersaurous" & "David".

Deserving of the American "Rosebud" Murdoch.

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 2:32 pm

Thanks John. I do not have your ability to speak to the heart as you paint beautiful pictures with words, but I enjoy researching and learning and passing on information.

johnlord2013December 30, 2013 at 2:19 pm

Very comprehensive Kaye. You are a welcome addition to the troops.

Ricky PannDecember 30, 2013 at 3:55 pm

mike danielsDecember 30, 2013 at 4:20 pm

I wonder if posters realise how accurate they are being in describing murdoch as rosebud? lol

johnlord2013December 30, 2013 at 3:40 pm

And you do it very well.

Möbius EckoDecember 30, 2013 at 8:05 pm

http://31.media.tumblr.com/881336c4148b7e0b72a2a90c88d3cda6/tumblr_myl3bjcHLS1qbtvygo1_1280.jpg

John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 8:15 pm

@Mike Daniels

Hopefully they do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyv19bg0scg

TimePasserDecember 30, 2013 at 8:28 pm

Thank you Kaye for another outstanding, informative article and I disagree with your comment to John Lord: “…..I do not have your ability to speak to the heart….” What else could it be but ‘speaking to the heart’ when information and reasoning combine to present a compelling argument which impassions readers to care more about others and the planet we live on?

Keep doing what you are doing, exactly the way you are doing it! You and John are complementary in the way you present items which stir the head and the heart and both of you demonstrate the unmistakable mark of wisdom – love for all humanity!

Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 8:37 pm

Timepasser that is very kind. Thank you. I think that’s what we all should do – complement each other. We all have different skills and knowledge. Together we can be an awesome force.

I remember early in my married life yelling at my husband who looked at me quizzically and quietly said “Hey hon, we are on the same team remember.” It’s one of those moments that I remind myself of a lot.

I don’t think Coalition voters truly want to rob their grandchildren of a chance to succeed. I don’t think they truly want to sell our planet to corporations. I don’t think they want to torture traumatised people. We have to keep talking to each other so we can understand and hopefully work out the right solutions.

Greed and misinformation are the enemy….not each other.

John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 8:52 pm

@TimePasser

AnomanderJanuary 1, 2014 at 10:27 am

Speaking of fruitcakes, now we have Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, sprouting even more outright untruths.

Throughout the years, I have seldom seen an article as intellectually dishonest as this piece of faecal material. There are so many deliberate lies here, it is almost impossible to know where exactly to start.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/crowds-go-cold-on-climate-cost/story-e6frgd0x-1226792154483#

uknowispeaksenseJanuary 1, 2014 at 10:43 am

Apologies about the self promotion but I have a few opinions about Maurice Newman here. http://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/abbott-cannot-deny-this/

Kaye LeeJanuary 1, 2014 at 11:55 am

Great article uknowispeaksense. Sharing information and opinions is essential. Please keep doing so 🙂

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lewisFebruary 9, 2014 at 9:16 am

Kaye you are doing what needs to be done with authority ,candour ,common sense and thorough research. Well done

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uknowispeaksenseMay 14, 2014 at 3:36 pm

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nickthiwerspoonDecember 29, 2013 at 6:06 pm

Reblogged this on Nick Thiwerspoon's Rumbles.
J.loubertDecember 29, 2013 at 6:26 pm

The book merchants of doubt covers the denial movement with clarity. Scary free market fundies.
The Village Idiot (Reformed)December 29, 2013 at 6:53 pm

So what was Professor Ross Garnaut’s claim to fame as a scientist ??? He was getting paid a fortune by Gillard as a “climate scientist” on the Climate Commission. And Flannery only has a PhD in kangaroo poo !!!!!!
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 7:17 pm

Garnaut has never claimed to be a scientist, unlike the people mentioned in the article above.. He is an academic and economist and a businessman and has experience in diplomacy and policy making. This is his view expressed to the Academy of Social Sciences:

“We should think about it, because there’s a chance that the mainstream science is right. When we think about it, those of us who are not climate scientists would need reasons beyond the current state of knowledge to think anything except that they are probably right. Certainly more likely to be right than people who have not spent the months and years and decades learning the subtleties of this complex area of knowledge. I hope that we here at least — members of this other learned academy that takes seriously the development and testing and accumulation of knowledge — can agree that there is enough of a chance that the mainstream physical and biological science is broadly right, to invest in understanding the implications for human society. After all, ours is the Academy that Australians look to for knowledge on how the immense pressures that we are in the process of placing on our societies may change human life on earth.

If we thought about the respective credentials of those who line up with the mainstream science, and those who are prepared to take their chances with information from other places, we would think that this issue was at least one of the fateful public policy matters of our time.”
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 7:28 pm

Tim Flannery was a professor at Macquarie University and held the Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability. He is also chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, an international climate change awareness group

In 2007, Flannery became Professor in the Climate Risk Concentration of Research Excellence at Macquarie University. He left Macquarie University in mid-2013. Flannery is also a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and a Governor of WWF-Australia. He has contributed to over 90 scientific papers.

Flannery was an advisor on climate change to South Australian Premier Mike Rann, and a member of the Queensland Climate Change Council established by the Queensland Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation Andrew McNamara.

He wrote a book called “The Weather Makers: The History & Future Impact of Climate Change” which won international acclaim and which was honoured in 2006 as ‘Book of the Year’ at the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards.

I would suggest he was slightly more qualified than the fruitcakes of a feather that deniers like to quote.
uknowispeaksenseDecember 29, 2013 at 7:32 pm

You forgot Plimer.
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 7:35 pm

Plimer had his own whole story…see “Tony’s tame expert”
palmersaurusDecember 29, 2013 at 8:56 pm

He has no professional qualification in limate science. He has merely been a paid advocate of BS. Thanks for the list showing it !!!!!!!!
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 9:06 pm

palmersaurus, you seem to completely misunderstand the role of the Climate Change Authority. They were not funded to be a scientific research group. Their job was to be up to date and report on current scientific papers and clean energy initiatives so they could make recommendations to the government on

•emissions reduction targets and carbon budgets
•the Renewable Energy Target
•the Carbon Farming Initiative, and
•the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System.

They weren’t the people who were doing the scientific research but they were evaluating and reporting on its implications and recommending future direction.
palmersaurusDecember 29, 2013 at 9:19 pm

@Kaye Lee – and that scientific research said the rain wouldn’t fill our dams, the seas would rise to 8 storeys etc. We paid good money for those bogus forecasts that never eventuated.
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 9:25 pm

First, Flannery did not say that Australian dams will never fill again. Andrew Bolt, misrepresenting Flannery, draws attention to a Feb 2007 Landline interview with Flannery in which Flannery said:

even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

Denialists like Bolt claim that Flannery meant by this that our dams would never fill again at any time for any reason from the date Flannery was speaking. However, what Flannery was actually saying was that climate trends at the time indicated a long-term outcome of normalized water shortage consistent with IPCC projections

Flannery’s comments were to the effect that Australia was at the time currently experiencing a 60% fall in run-off going into dams due to hotter soils and greater rainfall take-up by drought-stressed vegetation and that this would be indicative of what we could eventually expect as a consistent and normal outcome in the future.

He did not say that the dams would never fill again at any time from the date he was speaking, which is the thick-as-a-brick intentionally distorted view presented by Bolt and fellow travellers. Flannery was pointing to a long-term outcome of normalized water shortage based on current data and climate trends.

Flannery’s quote in context is:

We’re already seeing the initial impacts and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

Bolt knows, but pretends not to know, that Flannery was applying IPCC modelling and projections to (then) present circumstances in relation to reduced rainfall and that Flannery’s statement are in accordance with those. Bolt also knows that IPCC projections include intensified (i.e. more severe) but rarer flooding events, which of course would fill the dams.
cuppaDecember 29, 2013 at 9:27 pm

KL,

It’s no use trying to rationalise with wingnuts. They’ve been comprehensively hoodwinked by the mainstream media, who are in turn propaganda agents of big mining and energy interests. Most wingnuts are so credulous and dense the lying RW media could tell them shit was sugar and they’d believe it. It’s embarrassing for them because they rely on a sustainable atmosphere and climate just like everyone else, yet they’ve been hoodwinked into believing that it’s not important, allow polluting enterprises to foul it without hindrance.
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 9:28 pm

25 Metre Sea Level Rise

Paterson ridicules Flannery for approvingly quoting NASA’s James Hanson on the possibility of a 25 metre sea-level rise due to catastrophic ice melt and notes that such an eventuality would take thousands of years to materialise given current melt rates.

Unfortunately Paterson does not realise that Flannery agrees that such a change could take hundreds or thousands of years to eventuate and so has misrepresented Flannery as stating 25 metre sea level rise is imminent.

Of course Hanson’s actual prediction is based on Earth’s millenia-long climate history and anticipates that timeframe for its realisation, but Paterson ignores that to pretend Hanson and Flannery is warning of an imminent, practically immediate, 25 metre rise in sea levels.
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 9:39 pm

cuppa, it is not my job to convince anyone of anything. My aim is to pass on information. Perhaps in the to and fro of trying to discredit what I am saying, and justify what they are saying, people might learn things. That would be a good result. The greatest thing I would like people to realise from this is to check the credibility of your sources and who pays them and what their motivation might be. Read outside your usual sources to see what other people think rather than being fed lines by the Heartland Institute and Larry Pickering.
Möbius EckoDecember 29, 2013 at 9:58 pm

Good read Kaye Lee, where the current funding for the denialists is coming from: Not Just Koch Brothers: New Study Reveals Funders Behind Climate Change Denial Effort

Isn’t it telling the hypocrisy of the right wingers who always go on about the proponents of AGW being in it for the money, as palmersaurus averred, and so many others, yet it’s those who are against the science and the non-scientist or specialist who are being paid vast amounts of money, far more than any of the proponents, to deliberately discredit global warming, but the right wingers don’t seem to have any problems with that.
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 10:07 pm

ME. the thing they don’t seem to realise is that any scientist who came up with credible proof against AGW would be flooded with funding from industry and big business let alone governments. Why would 97% of them pass this up?

And thank you for that link. A quote from it for those who don’t bother clicking….

“The climate change countermovement is a well-funded and organized effort to undermine public faith in climate science and block action by the U.S. government to regulate emissions. This countermovement involves a large number of organizations, including conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, trade associations and conservative foundations, with strong links to sympathetic media outlets and conservative politicians.

If you want to understand what’s driving this movement, you have to look at what’s going on behind the scenes.

“The climate change countermovement has had a real political and ecological impact on the failure of the world to act on the issue of global warming,” said Brulle. “Like a play on Broadway, the countermovement has stars in the spotlight — often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians — but behind the stars is an organizational structure of directors, script writers and producers, in the form of conservative foundations. If you want to understand what’s driving this movement, you have to look at what’s going on behind the scenes.”

To uncover how the countermovement was built and maintained, Brulle developed a listing of 118 important climate denial organizations in the U.S. He then coded data on philanthropic funding for each organization, combining information from the Foundation Center with financial data submitted by organizations to the Internal Revenue Service.

The final sample for analysis consisted of 140 foundations making 5,299 grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations from 2003 to 2010. The data shows that these 91 organizations have an annual income of just over $900 million, with an annual average of $64 million in identifiable foundation support.”
Möbius EckoDecember 29, 2013 at 10:12 pm

That’s why a Swedish study into cloud forcing got so much funding, as it was promising in explaining why the globe was warming at the rate it was. They even built a multi-million dollar cloud chamber able to produce any type of cloud.

The last I heard on this was that the study was flared in several areas and some of the warming effects couldn’t be explained by cloud forcing.
Möbius EckoDecember 29, 2013 at 10:13 pm

Sorry, bloody tablet keyboard and predictive text, “flawed” not “flared”.
allenmcmahonDecember 29, 2013 at 11:40 pm

It seems there is no nuance with regard to the debate on climate change it is either catastrophic or doesn’t exist and if you occupy the middle ground you are considered a ‘troll’ by either side.

By the middle I mean people who accept the physics that a doubling co2 for the mid 19th century to now leads to a 1c increase in temps but don’t accept that climate sensitivity is extremely high and will lead to 4-6c increase in temps or in the case of extreme skeptics negative and we are on the way to a new ice age.

In terms of a science climate is still in its infancy and there is no model that predicts high end temps. that has been validated. In fact the reverse is the case and models are now increasingly perceived as running to ‘hot’ and are being adjusted downwards. There are more than 30 climate models and these are providing a wide range of predictions but only the models in the high range are quoted as proof that we are on the road to doom.

It seems we don’t believe the MSM unless it feeds our own preconceptions and then of course its the truth we are reading. Read a few science papers and you will see there are a wide range of views and we are only being given the extremes by both sides.
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 11:45 pm

allen I have read countless scientific papers. Pretty much every argument that can be brought up is answered here. http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Yours is number 6. http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
bighead1883December 29, 2013 at 11:45 pm

Haha,bloody brilliant.Kay.the Lunatic “Adults” in government listen to these other Adult Lunatics and those who voted LNP are even bigger Adult Lunatics for being sucked in by the head Crazy,Rupert Murdoch and his corporate media Lunatic peers.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bby4JCAIIAAfAzg.jpg?w=800&h=364
Kaye LeeDecember 29, 2013 at 11:58 pm

I feel like that joke about monks who had lived together for a lifetime. One monk would say 47 and they all would laugh. Then another would say 13, more laughter. When a visitor asked what was going on, they explained that they all knew each other’s jokes so had numbered them to save time.

It’s the same with AGW. Every argument against it has been tested and disproved. Dedicated people have collated all the information with references to scientific peer-reviewed articles. I have referred to that page and its links so many times that I am starting to say myth 12 stick to the basic answer, or myth 45, you may want to look at the advanced version.

The fact that we are still having this discussion is like groundhog day.
little guyDecember 30, 2013 at 12:49 am

I shudder to think what sort of world we are leaving future generations.They will look back to this time and label the people of the western world as the most selfish,greedy and morally coprrupt people to ever grace this beautiful planet.
M. R.December 30, 2013 at 5:24 am

The thing I don’t actually get is how climate change became a representation of the political divide – well, if you can accept that the guvmint is a political party and not just a rabble of wicked children …
Möbius EckoDecember 30, 2013 at 6:57 am

M.R. it became a political divide by George W Bush, who in government used the same PR company hired by Big Tobacco a decade or so earlier to discredit smoking causes cancer and then secondary smoking causes cancer.

After they did their work to froth up the wingnuts and deliberately muddy the waters by hiring speakers and any scientists they could pay enough, the same tactic they used for Tobacco, the big boys like the Koch brothers and ExxonMobile etc. poured vast sums in to discredit the growing science, and they set up think tanks, some disguised as scientific institutions.

As these were wholly right wing, and as studies have shown and is well known, right wingers mindlessly follow whatever they are told by the right, it rapidly became an ideological issue for them, but not for the left as much as the right wingers would like to believe it is.

There are enough left, centre and non-politically aligned people around the world for the deliberate muddying tactics by the right on what is a very complicated science to leave them at the minimum in a little doubt as to the validity of the science, which is what the vested interests want.

It’s all about delaying actions for as long as possible so their huge profits can keep rolling in unabated and they don’t have to outlay an extra cent to do anything to stop polluting. In other words as it always is with the right, it’s all about greed.
patsyDecember 30, 2013 at 7:30 am

if rhinehart is such a fabulous person why doesn’t she buy some shares in the poor and homeless of this her country which she is raping with her mining and taking what belongs to us all…..the richer she gets the more homeless and poor will become countless…….and dolt and jones well they are only weeds but are fast taking over……murdochs mutual admiration society…….shame on them all and abbott is supposed to be a good Christian …well he is the largest weed of all….
Terry2December 30, 2013 at 9:03 am

If you can control the media message you certainly can influence the thinking of some sectors of our community.

For instance, Greg Hunt and Tony Abbott have been dominant with their message when it comes to carbon pricing and their central message is that Australian families will save on average $550 p.a. on their electricity bill once the carbon tax has been repealed. My most recent electricity bill (from Ergon) has a notice, in red print, saying that :

” the carbon price and renewable energy target add about $259 a year to a typical 6.3 MWh household bill”

So, where is the media scrutiny and clarification of these mixed messages ?

Then you have the abolition of the school kids bonus ($400 primary and $800 secondary) which is still is battling its way through the Senate. Within my own family and circle of friends who have kids at school and who have significant additional expenses for uniforms, deposit on Laptops, extra-curricular activities, sports, trips & outings etc, the general consensus is that the carbon tax – which has already been compensated – is not as great an impact on family budgets as the loss of the bonus.

Again, the media have turned off and the government have been able to get away with a campaign of misinformation and deception.
joy cooperDecember 30, 2013 at 9:51 am

Strangely Rupert Murdoch says one thing here about climate change & his rags spruik the climate change denial message yet he says something completely different overseas.

Here is a link to a statement he made extolling the virtues of reducing one’s carbon footprint & bragging about News Corpse’s Global Energy Initiative.

http://gei.21cf.com/archive/GEI%20Launch%20Report.pdf

Dow Jones, a company owned by News Corpse, also was bragging about its use of renewable energy in its headquarters, even had a brochure telling all about this, but, now also strangely, that info has become difficult to find.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:04 am

Interesting link joy. I love this line from Murdoch….

“Addressing climate change is good business practice. We will improve the bottom line by cutting energy costs and investing in renewable resources. We will motivate our employees. We will excite our audiences. And we will demonstrate our continued ability to anticipate the future and lead our industry.”

Does he not read or listen to his own media?

New research out of the US has provided evidence of the “misleading” reporting of climate change by News Corporation. The report, Is News Corp. Failing Science, written by the Union of Concerned Scientists, looked into representations of climate change at Fox News and The Wall Street Journal over a period of six and 12 months respectively.

Out of 40 mentions of climate change on Fox News, 37 were determined to be misleading, or 93% of stories. The reporting in The Wall Street Journal (researchers looked at the opinion section) was slightly more accurate; 81% of stories were considered misleading.

Wendy Bacon from the Centre of Independent Journalism and the University of Technology Sydney reported that News Ltd had presented highly biased coverage of the federal Government’s carbon pricing package. She stated:

“Negative coverage [of the carbon price] across News Ltd newspapers far outweighed positive coverage with 82% compared to 18% positive articles. This indicates a very strong stance against the carbon policy adopted by the company that controls most Australian metropolitan newspapers, and has 70% of Australian newspaper circulation.”

Bacon’s research found that this coverage was systematic across News Ltd papers, with The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun being standouts.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 9:12 am

I fully agree terry2. It’s all about the message control
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:24 am

Before you start calling people fools you may want to get your info from somewhere OTHER than the Murdoch press palmersaurus.

In 2007, journalist Ken Auletta spent a great deal of time with Rupert Murdoch while writing a magazine profile of him. Auletta observed that Murdoch was frequently on the phone to his editors and this prompted him to ask: “of all the things in your business empire, what gives you the most pleasure?” Murdoch instantly replied: “being involved with the editor of a paper in a day-to-day campaign…trying to influence people”.

After the 2010 election – which resulted in a minority Labor government – Murdoch summoned his Australian editors and senior journalists to his home in Carmel, California. He made clear that he despised the Gillard government and wanted regime change. In 2011, Murdoch met Abbott and told his editors he liked him. His newspapers (a couple of which had actually supported Gillard in the 2010 election) thereafter campaigned strongly against the Gillard government, particularly on the issues of asylum seekers and climate change.

Murdoch’s overt interference in the 1975 campaign was so bad that reporters on the Australian went on strike in protest and seventy-five of them wrote to their boss calling the newspaper ‘a propaganda sheet’ and saying it had become ‘a laughing stock’ (Wright 1995). ‘You literally could not get a favourable word about Whitlam in the paper. Copy would be cut, lines would be left out,’ one former Australian journalist told Wright’ (1995).

~ Tony Wright, ‘On the Wrong Side of Rupert’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 October 1995.

To go on strike over wages and conditions is one thing understood by all, but for 109 journalists to go on strike during a Federal election campaign is indicative of just how bad the editorial interference was.
joy cooperDecember 30, 2013 at 10:26 am

palmersaurus, you sir are the fool. Of course, Rupert Murdoch is a complete hands-on controller of his news empire. Remember he sent his right hand man Col Allan to Australia from New York to oversee the election campaign being run by his Australian newspapers. Kim Williams “resigned” & the more moderate Courier Mail editor was replaced.

Rupert Murdoch is a complete & utter hypocrite. You have obviously not seen his anti-climate change tweets or the blatant directions tweeted to his Aussie editors. How you can excuse this foreign meddling-in-our-affairs monster is beyond me.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:38 am

I wonder if you are aware that we have a Guardian Australia that employs fine Australian journalists such as Lenore Taylor to comment on Australian news. It also gives us access to world news, though I realise that may not interest you.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:41 am

palmersaurus, don’t you think the funding from industry for scientists who could disprove global warming would be more of a drawcard than fighting for government grants? I ask again, why are all climate scientists passing up this veritable treasure trove of virtually unlimited funds from fossil fuel companies?
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 10:43 am

You DO realise of course that the submissions to the IPCC were voluntary whilst the opinions expressed by the Heartland Institute and affiliated bodies are paid for by billionaires with vested interests?
joy cooperDecember 30, 2013 at 10:48 am

Palmersaurus = RWNJ troll who ignores all points made because it doesn’t want to admit it is a total Murdoch-influence fool with no mind of its own.
John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 11:04 am

<

I'm impressed with the extreme right wing evangelists "Commenting" here.

Not with what they post …. talk about flogging Black Caviar's brother.

No, i'm impressed that they have the time and resources.

Not your everyday backyard protester … more a concerted effort.

Keep up the workload I say.

Makes for a good laugh at the end of what was a year with very few laughs …. unless of course you count this :
AnomanderDecember 30, 2013 at 11:16 am

There is little point presenting volumes of facts to trolls like palmersaurus because his mind is already set in concrete and no amount of evidence will sway the opinion given to him by the Merde-och press. All he will do is become even more obnoxious – calling everyone lefties or luvvies or fools – this is the modus operandi of the “right-eous”.

The more cold, hard evidence you present to people like this, the more rigid and entrenched their beliefs become because “belief” is absolutely fundamental to their entire ideology. Because, to prove one piece wrong shatters the whole edifice, so their only choice is to defend it even more strenuously.

They present no opposing evidence, because there is none to present – they rely instead upon anecdote and simplistic phrases, repeated ad-infinitum, believing that shouting loud enough or offending those who disagree with their view, is a way to prove their point.
John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 11:27 am

<

I wonder if "palmersaurus" has bothered reading this …. in relation to "foreign meddling" :

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/abbott-open-for-business-and-multinational-lawsuits/700/

"palmersaurus" ? …… a coincidence that "Rosebud" Murdoch's Courier Mail has an unhealthy obsession with Clive Palmer.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 11:28 am

I agree Anomander, but other people read the comments. If they learn something then good. I think the contrast between commenters is an informative thing within itself.
Möbius EckoDecember 30, 2013 at 12:10 pm

I think the gormless right wing trolls are doing a great job here. They are getting us to get out the facts or research new facts and store them for use against other right wing trolls and in topics showing how terrible Abbott is and that this is the worst government we have ever had.

Facts after all are the one thing that brings down a right wing troll and shows up this incoherent government.
AnomanderDecember 30, 2013 at 12:14 pm

I understand entirely Kaye and I thoroughly commend your considerable efforts to provide accurate, robust facts that counter the lies, propaganda and misinformation propagated by the denialist trolls.

Please keep-up the great work.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 12:43 pm

palmersaurus, you have been given a free run here, unlike what we are given if we go to a right wing site where we are promptly gagged and our comments removed. I have an edit facility. Don’t make me use it. Put your case without personal abuse and preferably without vulgarity or I will delete your comments. I would also remind you about the defamation laws in this country.
John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 12:51 pm

<

Not only does "palmersaurus" associate with child abusers he also carries on like one of them.

Humbly suggest you stop reading the American "Rosebud" Murdoch's trash.

They know even less about Palmers business than you do.

And keep away from schoolchildren.
diannaartDecember 30, 2013 at 12:55 pm

palmersaurus

I could not read beyond “This is where you leftards bugger it up…”

Perhaps you would have more success with your point of view if you simply refrained from beginning with and continuing on with insults throughout whatever it is you are trying to say… just a suggestion, of course, if you truly believe you can gain people’s support by insulting them, all I can do is wish you good luck… denigrating people has never won people over before, but who knows? You may be the first.
uknowispeaksenseDecember 30, 2013 at 1:18 pm

and that is why I no longer allow comments from trolls on my blog. I used to subscribe to the idea that rebutting trolls with facts is a good way to demonstrate to any lurkers the differences between ignorance and evidence, but in the end, all you end up doing is feeding the troll and motivating them and still putting their point of view in the public domain. In the words of one of my favourite performers, Tim Minchin, “Just because your ideas are tenacious doesn’t mean that they’re worthy.” If lurkers are visiting to find evidence, why give them unworthy crap?

Trolls like palmersaurus thrive on the attention and time you give them. Stop feeding them.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 1:20 pm

Au contraire palmersaurus. It is entirely up to you whether you will be allowed to continue posting. I am very pleased to debate but I do not want a slanging match, nor do I want a gossip column. If you read it on Pickering’s page then there is a fair bet that I won’t be interested, though I did agree with him about child slapping.

If you would care to debate in a civil way then you are welcome to contribute. Most people here like to learn things so providing links to your sources often helps. It will also help assess the credibility of your information. So far I haven’t learned anything from you….surprise me with something thoughtful that you haven’t been fed by people like Bolt and Pickering and Jones.

uknowispeaksense, I liked cornie’s version. It’s like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how well you play chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over the pieces, shit on the board, and strut around like a victor.
uknowispeaksenseDecember 30, 2013 at 1:29 pm

It’s difficult to demonstrate the rules of chess to a novice when there’s pigeon shit on the board. Said my bit. Not my blog. 🙂
Möbius EckoDecember 30, 2013 at 1:32 pm

I think all of my comments to date have been accurate – yet fellow contributors have ignore the facts stated therein.

He thinks they are, doesn’t know they are because here are no sources or links to back them up apart from the occasional throw to a right wing source that in itself doesn’t provide any evidence.

And the contributors herein provide fact after fact, more often than not with sources and references, yet the visitor ignores all the facts stated within this blog that doesn’t conform to their narrow minded distorted view of what a fact is.

It’s a two way street, not the one way going down the wrong way the visitor wants to drive us down.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 1:42 pm

First rule for novice chess players,

Learn to recognise and avoid the pigeon shit.
John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 2:28 pm

<

Ha ha ha …. poor sad little "palmersaurous" doesn't like being verballed.

But he and his mate "David" went along boots and all with Murdoch, Jones and Bolt when they did it to a Prime Minister of Australia.

"“There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,” conveniently leaving out the part after the comma, where she goes on to say “but lets be absolutely clear. I am determined to price carbon”.

I pity people like "palmersaurous" & "David".

Deserving of the American "Rosebud" Murdoch.
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 2:32 pm

Thanks John. I do not have your ability to speak to the heart as you paint beautiful pictures with words, but I enjoy researching and learning and passing on information.
johnlord2013December 30, 2013 at 2:19 pm

Very comprehensive Kaye. You are a welcome addition to the troops.
Ricky PannDecember 30, 2013 at 3:55 pm
mike danielsDecember 30, 2013 at 4:20 pm

I wonder if posters realise how accurate they are being in describing murdoch as rosebud? lol
johnlord2013December 30, 2013 at 3:40 pm

And you do it very well.
Möbius EckoDecember 30, 2013 at 8:05 pm

http://31.media.tumblr.com/881336c4148b7e0b72a2a90c88d3cda6/tumblr_myl3bjcHLS1qbtvygo1_1280.jpg
John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 8:15 pm

@Mike Daniels

Hopefully they do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyv19bg0scg
TimePasserDecember 30, 2013 at 8:28 pm

Thank you Kaye for another outstanding, informative article and I disagree with your comment to John Lord: “…..I do not have your ability to speak to the heart….” What else could it be but ‘speaking to the heart’ when information and reasoning combine to present a compelling argument which impassions readers to care more about others and the planet we live on?

Keep doing what you are doing, exactly the way you are doing it! You and John are complementary in the way you present items which stir the head and the heart and both of you demonstrate the unmistakable mark of wisdom – love for all humanity!
Kaye LeeDecember 30, 2013 at 8:37 pm

Timepasser that is very kind. Thank you. I think that’s what we all should do – complement each other. We all have different skills and knowledge. Together we can be an awesome force.

I remember early in my married life yelling at my husband who looked at me quizzically and quietly said “Hey hon, we are on the same team remember.” It’s one of those moments that I remind myself of a lot.

I don’t think Coalition voters truly want to rob their grandchildren of a chance to succeed. I don’t think they truly want to sell our planet to corporations. I don’t think they want to torture traumatised people. We have to keep talking to each other so we can understand and hopefully work out the right solutions.

Greed and misinformation are the enemy….not each other.
John FraserDecember 30, 2013 at 8:52 pm

<

@TimePasser

+1
AnomanderJanuary 1, 2014 at 10:27 am

Speaking of fruitcakes, now we have Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, sprouting even more outright untruths.

Throughout the years, I have seldom seen an article as intellectually dishonest as this piece of faecal material. There are so many deliberate lies here, it is almost impossible to know where exactly to start.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/crowds-go-cold-on-climate-cost/story-e6frgd0x-1226792154483#
uknowispeaksenseJanuary 1, 2014 at 10:43 am

Apologies about the self promotion but I have a few opinions about Maurice Newman here. http://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/abbott-cannot-deny-this/
Kaye LeeJanuary 1, 2014 at 11:55 am

Great article uknowispeaksense. Sharing information and opinions is essential. Please keep doing so 🙂
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lewisFebruary 9, 2014 at 9:16 am

Kaye you are doing what needs to be done with authority ,candour ,common sense and thorough research. Well done
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