Heaven help us before Hell becomes the inevitable destination

March 10, 2014
Written by: Kaye Lee
60 Replies

In May 2007, the Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading presented John Howard with a report that had “been informed by the views of a wide range of stakeholders.” They considered 216 submissions from interested parties and held discussions with 180 groups and individuals both in Australia and overseas. Dr Peter Shergold, Chair of the Task Force, said the broad-ranging expertise of government, industry, and environmental organisations had been of significant benefit to their deliberations.

In an introductory letter to Howard, Dr Shergold said:

“We hope that this report can contribute to the development of policy which will further strengthen Australia’s considerable record of achievement in addressing climate change at the domestic and international levels. Our conclusions have been framed to position Australia to take a lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining economic growth and safeguarding our competitive advantage.”

The report was extensive and came to the following conclusion:

“The members of the Task Group have come to a shared conclusion: the adoption of a longer-term emissions constraint and the introduction of an Australian emissions trading scheme offers the least-cost way of reducing the output of greenhouse gases domestically and would make a substantive contribution to a comprehensive solution internationally.

The Task Group believes the key to success is to begin at once, but to proceed with care on the basis of considered and informed decisions.”

One aspect of the Coalition’s Direct Action Plan is an Emission Reduction Fund where polluters are subsidised for specific reduction projects. This possibility was examined in the report with the following observations:

Project-specific approaches can involve high administrative overheads for both government and project proponents.
Financing subsidies and specific project-based interventions also impose costs on society from their use of taxation. If these approaches were to be used extensively to achieve large-scale abatement, the economy would suffer losses in economic and administrative efficiency. In contrast, market-based approaches to emissions abatement involve the explicit pricing of emissions, allowing the market to determine the cheapest source of emissions reduction.
Market-based approaches have the potential to deliver least-cost abatement by providing incentives for firms to reduce emissions where this is cheapest, while allowing the continuation of emissions where they are most costly to reduce.
Market-based approaches also provide a strong ongoing incentive for investment in technology research, development and deployment, and in business efforts to improve energy efficiency.
An emissions price provides incentives for the discovery and deployment of least-cost abatement opportunities. The damage caused by a unit of emissions is the same no matter where it comes from, so a uniform carbon price across the economy can harness abatement opportunities where they are cheapest.
Emissions pricing provides ongoing incentives to all firms and individuals to abate. Market participants have an incentive to abate whenever a unit of abatement is cheaper than the emissions price, which leads to the efficient exploitation of all abatement opportunities.
The process of ‘creative destruction’, with opportunities for the emergence of new industries as new technologies and production techniques supplant existing methods, is one of the key ways in which market-based approaches bring broader benefits to society.

One of the task force’s key messages was

“A desirable model for reducing emissions at least cost incorporates emissions trading with a price cap in the initial phase of a scheme – this combines the best features of a carbon tax with emissions trading.”

In other words, John Howard’s own advisers preferred the system we currently have in place. Many reports and submissions were given to the government confirming this.

“Harness the power of the market – the greatest benefit of emissions trading is the ability of the market to find the lowest cost solution. It follows from this that scheme[s] should have a minimum of rules that limit the type or level of abatement. The underlying principle should be to treat all opportunities equally based on their mitigation impact.”

Australian Plantation Products and Paper Industry Council submission to the Task Group

“Where the use of environmental goods and services is not valued properly, users of the resources have little incentive to recognise the costs of the environmental degradation they impose … Instead, the focus inappropriately shifts only to the financial growth foregone from addressing [and preventing] the environmental damage.”

Australian Government Intergenerational Report (2007, p. 71)

In July 2008 the Wilkins Review, done by the Department of Finance and Deregulation, looked at failures of direct action style schemes which had been implemented in Australia, such as the failed Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, and warned “project based abatement is difficult to achieve through a grants program – further demonstrating why the ETS is a superior approach to achieving large scale abatement.”

In the seven years since the report was published the overwhelming majority of scientific research has confirmed that climate is changing and AGW is playing a significant role in that change. In fact, the only debate seems to be on the time frame and severity of the catastrophe and even that is rapidly vanishing. Consensus is, and has been for a long time, that immediate action must be taken on a global scale.

Another major strategy of the Coalition’s DAP is soil carbon sequestration. Their policy document states that

“The single largest opportunity for CO2 emissions reduction in Australia is through bio-sequestration in general and, in particular, the replenishment of our soil carbons. It is also the lowest cost CO2 emissions reduction available in Australia on a large scale.”

However the CSIRO, in a submission to the Senate inquiry into DAP said that

“Soil carbon in agricultural zones is likely to provide low levels of greenhouse gas abatement. Saturation of carbon sinks (the maturation of forests and the restoration of soil carbon levels) means that per annum abatement from the land sector will decline in the decades after project establishment.”

Perhaps this explains Tony’s desire to log our old growth forests?

Economist Professor Ross Garnaut told the inquiry that abolishing carbon pricing could cost the federal budget at least $4 billion a year within five years, if the Abbott government wants to reduce emissions in line with Australia’s international commitments.

In his submission Professor Garnaut said direct action was vague and failed public interest analysis tests and that the government’s Green Paper on the Emissions Reduction Fund aimed at replacing the Rudd-Gillard climate policies ”is a shooting of the breeze”, merely raising a few questions that it failed to answer.

”It is an unusual document, lacking any semblance of the framework of public interest analysis that is characteristic of Australian policy-related papers of modern times.”

The government’s continued appointment of climate change sceptics to advisory roles shows its intention to ignore all scientific, economic and industry advice to pursue its big business agenda. They are prepared to sacrifice our future for the very short term advantage that exploiting our resources may give us. They seem determined to set the train to destruction into motion and disable the brakes.

Heaven help us before Hell becomes the inevitable destination.

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DCMarch 10, 2014 at 5:31 pm

Time for a general strike

mikestasseMarch 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm

Hell may already be here……… heck this out:

A hundred years after it spawned the iceberg that sank the Titanic in the North Atlantic, the Jakobshavn Glacier is now a major contributor to global sea-level rise, this time threatening the homes and lives not of 2,200 passengers and crew but of a billion people across the world.

Jakobshavn is now shedding ice nearly three times as quickly as it was 20 years ago, dumping enormous and growing quantities into the ocean. It’s contributed 0.1 millimeters per year to worldwide sea-level rise — more than 3 percent of the 3 mm produced globally — for the past decade.

By 2000, the glacier was losing 11 kilometers in length every year, nearly twice the stable speed. As of last summer, according to a paper Joughin and others published recently in academic journal The Cryosphere, it was losing nearly 17 kilometers a year, retreating up the fjord into increasingly deep water that could cause it to melt even faster in the coming decades.

Jakobshavn’s dramatic change was recorded in the 2012 film “Chasing Ice,” in a compelling scene that captured the calving of a kilometer of ice in a single event. That happens throughout the summer, Joughin said, though not always in such significant individual moments. (When it does, though, global seismic monitors have been known to register them as 4 or 5 on the Richter scale, he said.)

Here’s the clip from the documentary:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU]

More about Greenland melting @ http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/science/global-warming/140228/global-warming-greenland-Jakobshavn-glacier-sea-level

Douglas EvansMarch 10, 2014 at 7:29 pm

Too late Kaye
We are already in free fall it’s just that most people haven’t noticed (yet) as they have their eyes tight shut, their fingers in their ears and are singing la, la, lahhhh at the top of their voices.

helenmargMarch 10, 2014 at 7:50 pm

good comment Douglas Evans. We have not much hope with this appalling government.There must be someone with brain power amongst this lot.Labor stop sitting on your hands and confront them.

Matters NotMarch 10, 2014 at 8:11 pm

Both the political and scientific ‘sells’ on addressing climate change have been disasters. Take ‘carbon pricing’ which was a political/policy response to a scientifically recognised problem. (But it wasn’t the only option.) Put simply, ‘carbon pricing’ was a means to an end. The policy was designed to cause ‘pain’ to those who directly (and then indirectly) generated greenhouse gases, in particular Carbon Dioxide.

In theory, the greater the ‘pain’ (means) – the greater the decline in CO2 generation (the end). But the politicians, on the ‘progressive’ side, completely lost the plot (and their nerve). They failed repeatedly to explain what the policy was all about. Again and again they claimed: ‘it won’t hurt much’, ‘you will be compensated’ and the like. They ran away from the fact it was supposed to hurt so that behaviour would change.

The political focus was on the ‘means’ while the ‘end’ disappeared from public discussion.

And I will leave the scientists to consider why their ‘calling’ has now been marginalised.

Stephen TardrewMarch 10, 2014 at 10:19 pm

Sigh! Right again Kaye.

Spot on Matters Not.

There are no words to say how I feel.

Matters NotMarch 11, 2014 at 12:09 am

While I don’t claim to be an expert on ‘carbon pricing’ across the world, I do know that in Britain, to choose but one example, car registration prices are based on one’s particular car’s carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the current car I drive, a Holden just on a year old, would be deemed to have ‘high emissions’ and the registration costs would reflect that. So much so that I would be tempted to sell and start again (if I was a British car owner). I think it’s called ‘market forces’.

But then again I am an Australian resident and car owner. I may wait and see if I am offered an incentive to buy a less carbon emitting vehicle under ‘direct action’.

Surely, I am a candidate for an ‘incentive’ to stop my car’s ‘pollution’. If not, then why not?

As for, Gina who gets a multi billion dollar diesel rebate for not using government funded roads, can someone tell me what rebate I get for not using the outrageous cost of education? (Just joking) And the like?

And I might add, what rebate do I get when Tony et al enjoys his bike riding at public expense while my cycling efforts are so unrewarded? (Perhaps I can claim, puncture expenses … whatever).

lmrh5March 11, 2014 at 1:14 am

Reblogged this on lmrh5.

mars08March 11, 2014 at 7:02 am

It’s hard NOT to be impressed with most of our fellow citizens…

They seem quite happy to endorse any amount of cruelty to a relative handful of scruffy brown people arriving on wooden boats… because unacceptable risk!!!!

But when it comes to doing something about the very real danger of climate change…. eh, it can wait…

Kermit the greenieMarch 14, 2014 at 12:42 pm

I often wonder if the creators of propaganda such as this ever stop to ask themselves questions such as the following:

If global warming were a worry, why has the global average atmospheric temperature been in a steady downward trend since the Holocene maximum eight thousand years ago?

Why would it have warmed at the same rate from 1980 to 1997 that it COOLED from 1940 to 1977?

Why would the late twentieth century “warming” be less than that from 1910 to 1940?

If global warming were a worry, why is it exactly the same temperature now that it was in 1650?

If carbon dioxide were related to temperature, why is there no correlation other than a distinct tendency to lag temperature by about 800 years?

If there were such a thing as a ‘greenhouse effect’, why would other planets exhibit a nearly identical lapse rate when compared with Earth, even though in one case the atmosphere is 98% CO2?

If CO2 had a causal effect relative to temperature, why would it have been colder during epochs when CO2 concentration was twenty times the current value?

If ‘global warming’ were something to be feared, why is it that homo sapiens prospered during warmer periods and suffered during colder periods?

If plants are unable to grow at CO2 under 250 ppm, and thrive at 1200 ppm, why would more CO2 be anything other than beneficial?

Since the sources of ‘anthropogenic’ CO2 are minuscule in comparison to natural sources, and more CO2 is beneficial to all life on planet Earth, why would the billion dollars a day wasted on green eco-loon shit be anything but a foolish expenditure?

Why would eco-loons and cranky green ‘useful idiots’ prefer a life of tyranny under a totalitarian dictatorship rather than the individual freedom of the past 500 years which has resulted in prosperity not even dreamed of by our ancestors?

Kaye LeeMarch 14, 2014 at 4:15 pm

You have just listed every ridiculous untruth being perpetrated by the denial movement and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. To answer every single one of your “theories”, every one of which has been disproven, go to the following site and look up the answers to all of your questions. You will find explanations with links and references to peer reviewed papers. Your information is incorrect. http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Kermit the greenieMarch 14, 2014 at 5:44 pm

Those are facts. Learn to differentiate facts from fiction.If you knew even a skerrick of atmospheric physics you would understand that everything on SKS is fiction.

Kaye LeeMarch 14, 2014 at 5:53 pm

Excuse me if I choose to believe the 97% of scientists who agree and the fact that basically every peer-reviewed paper on the subject also disagrees with you. I would be interested to hear where you get your information from that gives you the certainty to go against the vast majority of all experts in the field. The source of information is extremely important. Can you tell me?

Kermit the greenieMarch 14, 2014 at 5:59 pm

So a logical fallacy is all you’ve got?

Kaye LeeMarch 14, 2014 at 7:12 pm

Your argument about the Holocene era comes from Christopher Monckton and is based on the temperatures from the top of the Greenland ice sheet. This data ends in 1855, long before modern global warming began. It also reflects regional Greenland warming, not global warming.

The average global surface temperature decreased slightly (0.1 degrees) from 1940 to 1975. The main reason behind this mid-century cooling was global dimming due to anthropogenic sulfate aerosol emissions.

Your comparison for warming in the late twentieth century is incorrect. Look at a graph.

CO2 didn’t initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming. In fact, about 90% of the global warming followed the CO2 increase. as ocean temperatures rise, oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere. In turn, this release amplifies the warming trend, leading to yet more CO2 being released. In other words, increasing CO2 levels become both the cause and effect of further warming.

The problem with Postma’s work about Venus is that he assumes a one-layer atmosphere, which is an absurd assumption when you approach the extremely high optical thickness of Venus. Venus has a 90 bar atmosphere that has well over 90% carbon dioxide, some water vapor, and a greenhouse effect generated by suluric acid droplets and SO2. The radiative transfer on Venus works much differently than on Earth, owing in part to intense collisional broadening of CO2 molecules. A photon has an extremely difficult time escaping Venus, unable to do so until it reaches the very outer parts of its atmosphere.

It is possible to boost growth of some plants with extra CO2, under controlled conditions inside of greenhouses. Based on this, ‘skeptics’ make their claims of benefical botanical effects in the world at large. Such claims fail to take into account that increasing the availability of one substance that plants need requires other supply changes for benefits to accrue. It also fails to take into account that a warmer earth will see an increase in deserts and other arid lands, reducing the area available for crops.

The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2 without removing any. A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20,000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken just 120 years.

Now will you answer me about the source of your information?

Michael TaylorMarch 14, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Kaye Lee, I don’t think that was the answer you were looking for. 😉

Kaye LeeMarch 14, 2014 at 9:15 pm

“Those are facts. Learn to differentiate facts from fiction.If you knew even a skerrick of atmospheric physics you would understand that everything on SKS is fiction.”

Every theory you have suggested is discussed on sceptical science with different levels of technical information, all with links and references to peer-reviewed papers. I can check the credentials of the authors and the response to the article amongst other scientists. I can read the observations, summaries and the recommendations.

Until you provide me with your sources I cannot do the same with the things you describe as “facts”. I would be ecstatic if the scientists were wrong and I would imagine anyone who could prove them so would be awarded the Nobel prize and live a life of luxury funded by the fossil fuel industry.

Show me the “logical fallacy”. Enlighten me with ground breaking research. It’s not that I don’t trust you…but I may not trust the person who told you.

Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 7:59 am

A rational individual considers the evidence provided by observation and applies reason and logic to reach a conclusion.

Because you appear to possess no understanding of the chemical and physical processes that we know as nature, your text amounts to nothing but gossip; a litany of “he said this and she said that”.

When faulty and flawed reasoning occurs in argumentation or rhetoric, the error is known as a logical fallacy. Logical fallacies are most often seen in the form of thoughtless generalizations or badly formed conclusions, and the study of breakdowns in logic is generally seen to be helpful in building skills in persuasive writing. However, the same faults that make for poor arguments in an essay are often used on purpose by politicians, journalists, and advertisers as they attempt to subvert their audiences into erroneous thinking. Reasoning that appeals to fears or prejudices rather than more positive rationales have historically been used to sway opinions and as techniques to steer attention from the issues at hand.
Your “arguments” consist solely of logical fallacies.

Your erroneous “97%” tactic is not only patently false, but meaningless as well. It is the logical fallacy of “argumentum ad publicum”, or the argument from omniscience. Examples of situations in which virtually everyone believed “the scientists’ are phrenology, eugenics, and Lysenkoism. Incidentally, you have been duped by the shonky cartoonist at your SKS. His “peer reviewed paper” is an excellent example of nonsense that is “peer reviewed”.

Your reasoning is frequently flawed by the illogical “argumentum ad vericundiam”, or the appeal to authority. Simply because an authority makes a claim does not necessarily mean he got it right.

Your entire post is fundamentally “argumentum ad baculum”, an argument based on an appeal to fear or a threat. You frequently use “argumentum ad populum”; an argument aimed to sway popular support by appealing to sentimental weakness rather than facts and reasons.

Your confirmation bias is a form of selective thinking that focuses on evidence that supports what believers already believe while ignoring evidence that refutes their beliefs.

I hope this helps, but, as will all religious zealots, your confirmation bias will always prevent your seeing the forest for the trees. It is a pity that there are a few people out there that are capable of taking your nonsense on board. Have a look at

Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 8:08 am

What a load of hot air.

I note you still will not provide references for your theories. Is this just stuff that you think is the case or are there scientific studies to back them up and if so please provide the source.

I note also that you completely dismissed every scientific explanation I gave to your theories, all of which I can provide sources for.

Your very long-winded post was nothing but an attempt at deflection as was your bombardment with every denialist argument all at once. Rather than allowing sensible discussion this sort of scattergun approach is intended to overwhelm.

You are a classic denialist and I have heard it all before and seen the tactics you use.

Show me your sources or stop wasting my time.

RoswellMarch 15, 2014 at 8:09 am

Kermit, so you’re basically suggesting that we should ignore the opinion of 97% of the worlds climate scientists and run with yours instead.

And your evidence is?

Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 8:48 am

You seem to do very well at wasting your own time. If you want to know, it is easy to find. You won’t find it on the charlatan’s page at SKS.

Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 9:14 am

Are you ashamed of your sources? Are you scared that I will check on the credentials of whoever is writing this stuff? Did you just read it somewhere and not do any checking to verify its credibility?

And actually I DID find every one of your arguments and where it came from on sceptical science. I have also read why they have been discounted. As I said, I am happy to provide links to scientific papers, something I note you are completely unwilling to do.

And I don’t consider exposing the “logical fallacies” in deniers’ arguments a waste of time but you have no argument. You are just regurgitating something but you apparently have no idea of where it comes from.

Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 9:45 am

Roswell, I’m not suggesting that you listen to anyone. Rather, I suggest that you pay heed to the data, mathematics, and physics.
Your “97%” nonsense is not only meaningless, but in reference to a simplistic questionnaire by Doran for which he apologised, or the fraudulent gag of John Cook.

Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 1:35 pm

Once again you refuse to state your sources. Let me state mine which refute your blowing in the wind.

Naomi Oreskes found no rejections of the consensus in a survey of 928 abstracts performed in 2004. Doran & Zimmerman (2009) found a 97% consensus among scientists actively publishing climate research. Anderegg et al. (2010) reviewed publicly signed declarations supporting or rejecting human-caused global warming, and again found over 97% consensus among climate experts. Cook et al. (2013) found the same 97% result through a survey of over 12,000 climate abstracts from peer-reviewed journals, as well as from over 2,000 scientist author self-ratings, among abstracts and papers taking a position on the causes of global warming.

In addition to these studies, we have the National Academies of Science from 33 different countries all endorsing the consensus. Dozens of scientific organizations have endorsed the consensus on human-caused global warming. Only one has ever rejected the consensus – the American Association of Petroleum Geologists – and even they shifted to a neutral position when members threatened to not renew their memberships due to its position of climate denial.

In short, the 97% consensus on human-caused global warming is a robust result, found using several different methods in various studies over the past decade. It really shouldn’t be a surprise at this point, and denying it is, well, denial.

BacchusMarch 15, 2014 at 2:37 pm

“I suggest that you pay heed to the data, mathematics, and physics.”

Ah, so you’re a climate scientist who has been studying the “data, mathematics and physics” for decades? You have published peer reviewed papers on climate science?

I didn’t think so 🙄

Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 4:31 pm

I did a survey using exactly the same technique used in a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor.
I sent an email to survey 10,257 people. I asked only two questions:
a) Does Santa Claus live at the North Pole?
b) Will Santa Claus come to your place Christmas Eve?

I was deeply disappointed with the results. Only 75 people answer in the affirmative to both questions. Two answered in the affirmative to the second.

I did some analysis and discovered that many of the people I had selected at random were not Christians, so
I discarded those results. Still I was disappointed and noticed a pattern. The 77 people were all five years old or less. Of these 77, only two did not respond to question one in the affirmative. I discarded all of the responses from anyone over the age of five, and voila!

I quickly concluded my survey, and published the thesis. My conclusion was that 75 of 77, or 97% respondents think that Santa Clause lives at the North Pole and will arrive at their house Christmas Eve. Professor Doran was in the Christmas Spirit, and had consumed far too many spirits while he was marking, and gave me an ‘A’. Then the University of Illinois published, and Professor Doran was thoroughly embarrassed, and had to apologise.
I did another survey using exactly the same techniques used by the cartoonist John Cook in a supposedly “scientific” paper Cook et al 2013.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/

I pretended to read the flyleaf of nearly 12,000 childrens’ books. Although I intended to read all of these intros in the beginning, I gave up and guessed at most of them. Any of them that contained the phrase “behaving badly” I assumed was written by either a sex maniac or a paedophile. I then dressed up this nonsense in an official looking paper and had a few friends over for a beer and they claimed that they had “peer reviewed” it. I then published as conclusive evidence that 97% of all childrens’ books are written by sex maniacs or paedophiles. Next I called up a few crooked journalists I know so that they could publish stories about my paper without even reading it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/

YOU have just made my point very well. It takes a particularly gullible fool to digest a load of total twaddle composed by posers like John Cook or Naomi Oreskes and then regurgitate it without having a clue as to how it was compiled or what it means.
Are you aware that 120 “peer reviewed scholarly papers” were recently retracted because they were gobbledegook created by computer software?

Springer, IEEE withdrawing more than 120 nonsense papers

Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 4:39 pm

Thank you for providing your source. here is the bio of the man who wrote the article you are quoting from.

“I am senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News. I write about energy and environment issues, frequently focusing on global warming. I have presented environmental analysis on CNN, CNN Headline News, CBS Evening News, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and several national radio programs. My environmental analysis has been published in virtually every major newspaper in the United States. I studied atmospheric science and majored in government at Dartmouth College. I obtained my Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.”

Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 4:52 pm

And your point is???? That is if you have a point.

Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 4:52 pm

The second article you linked to is a cautionary tale about checking the credibility of your sources and the credentials of authors. Exactly what I have been saying to you. Just because you read something written online by some guy who is paid by the Heartland Institute who in turn are paid by the Koch brothers doesn’t make it true.

You need to start reading what scientists say…and any that are still deniers, you will find are paid by the Heartland Institute or a similar body.

Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 5:19 pm

A quick check of the scientists mentioned in the article written by a guy from the Heartland Institute. See if you can spot the similarity…..

According to documents leaked from the Heartland Institute, Craig Idso has been receiving $11,600 a month from the Heartland Institute through his Center for the Study of CO2 & Global Change

Many of Scafetta’s skeptical opinion articles and publications were published by organizations known for doubting the existence of climate change (including the Heartland Institute, and the Science and Public Policy Institute). Scafetta was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change.

Nir Shaviv was a speaker (PDF) at the Eighth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-8)/Fifth International Conference on Climate and Energy (ICCE-5) sponsored by both the Heartland Institute and the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). Nir Shaviv was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s 7th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). Heartland’s ICCC7 collectively received over $67 million from ExxonMobil, the Koch Brothers and the conservative Scaife family foundations.

U.S. oil and coal companies, including ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, Koch Industries, and the world’s largest coal-burning utility, Southern Company, have contributed more than $1 million over the past decade to Willie Soon’s research. According to Greenpeace, every grant Dr. Soon has received since 2002 has been from oil or coal interests.

Nils-Axel Morner was a speaker (PDF) at the Eighth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-8)/Fifth International Conference on Climate and Energy (ICCE-5) sponsored by both the Heartland Institute and the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). Mörner was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s 2010 International Conference on Climate Change. After the conference, Mörner had a book signing for The Greatest Lie Ever Told. The Conference is sponsored by numerous global warming skeptic organizations, and in 2009 the event’s sponsors collectively received over $47 million from oil companies and right-wing foundations.

Alan Carlin was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s 7th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). Speaker at the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change. He is not a climate scientist.

Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 5:44 pm

You DID have a point. At least you are consistent.

It was the point I have been making all along. Rather than deal with the content, you consistently focus on who said it. That is the logical fallacy of the non-sequitor, or in the way you are using it, argumentum ad hominem.

So thanks for making my point for me AGAIN.
And by the way, if it were something from the Heartland Institute, the inference is that it was carefully developed and presented, and while that does not insure veracity, the probability that it is correct is about 99%. If it is something from SKS, on the other hand, the probability that it is pure, unadulterated, unsophisticated sophistry is 100%.

Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 5:48 pm

Oh come on. I spoke about the science in answer to you several posts ago and you completely ignored it and launched into a display of Latin that has nothing to do with anything.

If you would care to discuss one theory at a time I am more than happy to discuss the science. I do however like to see references. Your only one so far was to an article in Forbes magazine that had nothing to DO with the science.

Matters NotMarch 15, 2014 at 6:03 pm

Know what happens when a real sceptic deals with the data. Take the example of Richard Muller, a noted ‘sceptic’ at the time who along with other eminent scientists.

“…we are bringing the spirit of science back to a subject that has become too argumentative and too contentious, ….we are an independent, non-political, non-partisan group. We will gather the data, do the analysis, present the results and make all of it available. There will be no spin, whatever we find. We are doing this because it is the most important project in the world today. Nothing else comes close

When the study team was announced, blogger Anthony Watts, who popularized several of the issues addressed by the Berkeley Earth group study, stated

I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. The method isn’t the madness that we’ve seen from NOAA, NCDC, GISS, and CRU. That lack of strings attached to funding, plus the broad mix of people involved especially those who have previous experience in handling large data sets gives me greater confidence in the result being closer to a bona fide ground truth than anything we’ve seen yet

And the ‘outcome’: Muller stated:

Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause

Mugged by reality?

mars08March 15, 2014 at 6:12 pm

uh… ahem…

Really? Don’t you folks have something better to do???

DON’T FEED THE TROLLS!

Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 7:07 pm

Ah, THE SCIENCE. The Diety of the Church of Climatology religion. Have you met “THE SCIENCE”? Is THE SCIENCE male or female? Black or white? Tall or short?

If you want to talk science, let’s start with the null hypothesis. The thousand year old scientific method stipulates that the null hypothesis must be disproved before any completing hypothesis is proposed. After about thirty years of trying, your tribe has failed to disprove the null hypothesis, so that is all there is to an honest scientific argument. It’s game, set, and match.

I think it is important to identify just who is in denial here. There is no tropospheric hotspot as theory would dictate, there clearly hasn’t been an exponential (or even significant) rise in temperature since 1997 as predicted but rather an embarrassing lack of warming, all GCMs are running way too hot and actually diverging from observations, and with the lack of correlation of global temperature observations with model predictions actually INCREASING their confidence in their theory being the piece de resistance of denialism.

So, I think it is a case of put up or shut up. If you provide convincing evidence to confirm that we will be warming due to water vapour magnifying the effect of slowly rising CO2, then let’s see it.

(and by the way, mindless references to the BULLSHIT so prolific from the likes of John Cook, Bill McKibbon, James Hansen, Michael Mann, David Suzuki, or similar eco-loons. does not constitute EVIDENCE and only serves embarrasses you)

Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 7:32 pm

What a load of old bollocks! Muller was never anything but a scammer. His entire BEST bullshit was a hoax. His daughter had a green magasine, Between the pair of them they siphened off millions.

BacchusMarch 15, 2014 at 8:46 pm

Hmmm, Kermit, your facade is slipping 😉

karabarMarch 15, 2014 at 8:53 pm

Busy watching the Commie/Fascist ALP/Green coalition take a richly deserved shit kicking in Tasmania.

Möbius EckoMarch 15, 2014 at 9:28 pm

Fascist ALP, now there is a prime bit of projection right there.

Anyway you analyse it neo-fascism fits the modern Liberals like a glove.

Plus the Commie tag really gives away the stupidity.

What will be your excuse when Tasmania goes backward under Federal/State Liberal governments and it’s environment is destroyed. No need to answer, you will blame Labor and the Greens.

kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 9:42 pm

Compare the Greens policy document with the demands of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party of 1929 and you will find them almost identical.
Compare the ALP web site with the Communist Manifesto and you will find them very similar,
Be very concerned about your liberty.

BacchusMarch 15, 2014 at 9:51 pm

Hmmm…. Sock puppets at work. ~~karabar~~ kermit the greenie’s arguments crumbling quickly here. Like most deniers’ arguments – holds no water, descends quickly into abyss…

Matters NotMarch 15, 2014 at 10:55 pm

kermit the greenie said:

Muller was never anything but a scammer

I wouldn’t know. Not sure of his history, but on paper at least, he looks impressive. But more importantly, given your penchant for ‘correctness’, isn’t that assertion an hominem argument?

Or do you have a different explanation of ‘reality’?

Then we have:

His entire BEST bullshit was a hoax

Right. And the other scientists who signed off on same? And the counter explanation is or was? Explanations please.

Then it becomes even more hilarious with:

His daughter had a green magasine (sic)

Yes Kermit, we know you have a hatred for ad hominem arguments. Perhaps a ‘slip of the tongue’?

Kermit, with all due respects, you describe yourself as a ‘frog’ and that’s perhaps an apt description, given you are being ‘slowly boiled’ on this site, and crucially, you don’t know it.

Matters NotMarch 15, 2014 at 11:54 pm

Crucially, when it comes to ‘climate science’ and the assertions made, there’s any number of ‘refereed’ articles that support same. Granted they are within an accepted scientific ‘paradigm’, but if there’s a new ‘paradigm’ (accompanied by a host of, so far, unpublished articles) please explain? Or better still, expound on this new ‘paradigm’.

Here’s a ‘starter’ for the boiling frog.

http://www.taketheleap.com/define.html

I’m always hopeful, it’s not too late.

But if you want to get a little deeper you might want to move from 101.

http://coraifeartaigh.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/kuhn-vs-popper-the-philosophy-of-lakatos/

But I suspect not? So much easier to be a Kermit sitting in the bottom of a pond?

Kermit the greenieMarch 16, 2014 at 8:51 am

There are several different “sciences”.
Ranked in order of increasing bullshit, they are:

Hard science
Shoddy science
Junk science
Fake science
The social sciences

The epistemology to which Lakatos refers might be applied to the social sciences.
For the physical sciences, it’s only Karl Popper’s.

Mainstream so-called “climate science” belongs in the junk and fake categories.

Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 1:07 pm

I would assume that the “null hypothesis” would be that man is not contributing to global warming.

To quote from your link

“The question Cook and his alarmist colleagues surveyed was simply whether humans have caused some global warming. The question is meaningless regarding the global warming debate because most skeptics as well as most alarmists believe humans have caused some global warming.”

Choosing 1998 to start comparisons of warming from is a well known trick. It was a very hot year. It has of course been surpassed with records being broken every year. Cherry-picking a very short time period ignores trends over much longer periods. It also ignores other variables like El Nino and sunspot activity and using only surface air temperatures is meaningless as the great majority of warming goes into our oceans. You also need to consider global temperatures, not just data from one spot.

“(and by the way, mindless references to the BULLSHIT so prolific from the likes of John Cook, Bill McKibbon, James Hansen, Michael Mann, David Suzuki, or similar eco-loons. does not constitute EVIDENCE and only serves embarrasses you)”

The closest you have come to providing a reference was an online article in Forbes written by some guy from the Heartland Institute. You gotta be kidding me. Let me try to get through to you….

Scientists rule, deniers drool.

(Hey, it works for Tony.)

Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 1:23 pm

Even if we focus exclusively on global surface temperatures, Cowtan & Way (2013) shows that when we account for temperatures across the entire globe (including the Arctic, which is the part of the planet warming fastest), the global surface warming trend for 1997–2012 is approximately 0.11 to 0.12°C per decade.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.2297/full

The next link shows how taking short time periods distorts the overall trends. Kids at school study this as an example of data manipulation.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

Möbius EckoMarch 16, 2014 at 2:12 pm

Kermit the greenie/karabar. The documents and manifestos are nothing like the Greens and Labor platforms. What weed are you on?

On the other hand read up on neo-fascism and it fits Abbott like a glove. It wasn’t the last Labor government that covered themselves in secrecy and closed down open dialogue, but this current government certainly is shutting down democracy and plans for more.

The freedom you endear is being gradually lost at the hands of the party you mindlessly support and voted for.

Also note that Kermit the greenie doesn’t debate the science of global warming, but meaninglessly attacks the abstraction of it. Yet the very things he denigrates the science with, that is junk and fake etc. perfectly fits the vested interests and mouthpieces they employ to calumniate the verified and validated climate science.

it’s classic right wing projection and obfuscation.

Kermit the greenieMarch 16, 2014 at 2:20 pm

Null Hypothesis definition:

A type of hypothesis used in statistics that proposes that no statistical significance exists in a set of given observations. The null hypothesis attempts to show that no variation exists between variables, or that a single variable is no different than zero. It is presumed to be true until statistical evidence nullifies it for an alternative hypothesis.

In this situation, the null hypothesis is that no statistically significant excursion in the value of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures has occurred over the time interval for which data is available. This, by the way, is Popper falsifiable.

There is no statistically significant deviation in the record. Thus, the null hypothesis has never been disproved. On 21 May 2013 Dame Julia Slingo stood before the House of Lords in the British Parliament and reported that there has been no statistically significant excursion in global temperatures since 1860. She also testified that this is correct with a probability of 999 out of 1000. In other words, the temperature excursions which occur on a regular 11 year cycle, as well an approximate 60 year cycle, are entirely due to the course of nature.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/130521w0001.htm#13052174000434

You DO REALISE, I presume, the UK Meteorological office (the Met) which is under the control of Dame Slingo, is reputed to be at the very top of this game. Incidentally, the Met maintains the oldest temperature record in the world, called the CET or Central England Temperature record, which dates back to 1650. The mean temperature in the CET for that year is 9.5 C which is exactly the same for 2013.
So considering Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, if there is no warming, it is game over. It is nonsense to consider whether or not is “anthropogenic” if it does not exist, and it is equally ridiculous to consider whether or not it is “catastrophic”.
Just like Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, and the Unicorn, it is all in your imagination.

No warming at all in 17 years, 6 months.
Twice as many cold records as hot records.
Temperature corrrelation with TSI but definitely not CO2

WHO ARE THE “DENIERS” NOW?

Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 2:48 pm

I know what a null hypothesis is.

The link you provided has nothing to do with Dame Slingo or global temperatures – yes I do check them.

I would like to see the scientific paper that finds that no statistically significant excursion in the value of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures has occurred over the time interval for which data is available.

Could you show me the source of that information please?

Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 2:57 pm

Line plot of global mean land-ocean temperature index, 1880 to present (2013), with the base period 1951-1980. The graph shows an overall long-term warming trend. In the 1890s, the global temperature anomaly was on average slightly below -0.3 °C, in the 1940s, the global temperature anomaly was on average slightly below +0.1 °C, in the 2000s, the global temperature anomaly was on average slightly below +0.6 °C

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif

BacchusMarch 16, 2014 at 3:06 pm

It would appear that “Kermit the slowly boiled” doesn’t understand what he’s reading. Have a read of this piece from the Met Kaye: https://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/a-response-on-statistical-models-and-global-temperature/

Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 3:13 pm

Well that just about answers it thanks Bacchus. Do you think Kermit thinks we will believe his crap just on his say so when it is so easily refuted by innumerable credible sources when he hasn’t got a one? Not ONE link to anything yet, just a whole pack of rot.

Matters NotMarch 16, 2014 at 11:46 pm

Must admit, I’m always interested in those who want to discuss the ‘philosophy’ of science or indeed any area of human endeavour.

The slowly boiling frog (AKA known as Kermit) asserts, without reservations:

For the physical sciences, it’s only Karl Popper’s

Seem that there is a total disregard of the contributions made by Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyeraband to the epistemological debate, but then again.

It matters not.

But, perhaps not?

Kermit the greenieMarch 17, 2014 at 7:41 am

“I know what a null hypothesis is”

Then why did you ask?.

“The link you provided has nothing to do with Dame Slingo or global temperatures – yes I do check them.”

The link is to Hansard; probably something you are not accustomed to reading. If you scroll down past the first few lines you will find a heading “Climate Change”. Julia Slingo does not address the upper house herself. Baroness Verma (essentially her boss) provides the report prepared by the Met Office.

“I would like to see the scientific paper that finds that no statistically significant excursion in the value of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures has occurred over the time interval for which data is available.”

You just did.

“Could you show me the source of that information please?”

May I suggest that you learn to use a search engine, such as Google or Bing? That way you could find things yourself. You might even discover there is a world of information out there which is not in concert with SKS or 360.org.

Kaye LeeMarch 17, 2014 at 8:04 am

I didn’t ask what a null hypothesis was. I am aware that the link was to Hansard. I often quote Hansard myself in articles but only when it is relevant and I would never quote what a politician says as some sort of scientific proof.

I read the few paragraphs under climate change. Baroness Verma does not provide a report. She discusses various different statistical methods. You completely misrepresented what was said and if you click onto the link provided by Bacchus you will actually read the truth from the Met office as opposed to what YOU say they said.

“You just did”? I must have blinked. You have not shown one skerrick of scientific information let alone a link to a scientific paper. You didn’t understand what you read from Hansard.

I know how to research which is why you are so easy to refute. The rubbish you talk is regurgitated on every denier blog and has been disproven, discredited, and in many cases derided. You really have to start reading what scientists write rather than what people who are paid by the Koch brothers via the Heartland Institute are feeding you. You have been duped.

Kermit the greenieMarch 17, 2014 at 8:47 am

The Met Office blog post to which you refer is smoke and mirrors. When clear and concise questions and accusations are answered with “word blizzards”, even the fly on the wall knows who’s blowing smoke.

Let’s clarify the meaning of “statistical significance” in the context of regression analysis. The purpose of doing a regression is to test a hypothesis. In this case, the hypothesis is that warming since 1980 exceeds normal climate fluctuations. It appears that the warming is in fact “not statistically significant”. That means the hypothesis that warming exceeds normal variability must be rejected. There is no proof that in fact, the warming is “unprecedented”, or even unusual.

Slingo’s paper, does not at any point prove that CO2 is the reason why the climate has warmed. She and everyone else involved in it has not put forward a satisfactory explanation as to why there has been no GW for the last 17 years and 6 months despite the headlining 400ppm atmospheric CO2.

Do you consider a rise in global temperature of 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1880 to be significant? You experience that when you walk from one side of a room to the other and you do not even notice it. What if you compare it to the Holocene Optimum? Or the Minoan, or the Roman, or the Medieval? How does that compare with temperatures 137 million years ago before the big cold plunge into the Cretaceous?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Great Lakes are frozen over. Niagara Falls is frozen. Temperatures are responding to the sun’s activity, or lack of it. You are the one that is duped. And attempting to dupe everyone else.

Kaye LeeMarch 17, 2014 at 9:27 am

In one breath you say “You DO REALISE, I presume, the UK Meteorological office (the Met) which is under the control of Dame Slingo, is reputed to be at the very top of this game. ” and then you say “The Met Office blog post to which you refer is smoke and mirrors.” Hmmmm………

Perhaps I should explain that I have studied both science and statistics at university so no need for your explanations of terminology. Statistical significance is one measurement and the longer the time frame the more accurate the result. For example, if you look at warming from 1983 to 1998 it is not statistically significant but if you change the test to from 1982 to 1998 it IS statistically significant. Statistics alone cannot cover all climate science.

The claim that the increase in global warming is larger than could be explained by natural variability has a clear and well understood grounding in fundamental physics and chemistry. There is very high confidence (using the IPCC’s definition) that the global average net effect of human activities since 1850 has been one of warming. The basis for this claim is not, and never has been, the sole use of statistical models to emulate a global temperature trend. Instead it is based on hundreds of years of scientific advancement, supported by the development of high-quality observations and computational modeling.

According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)…the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8°Celsius since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade.

Nearly all scientists have reached the same conclusion: if we increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the Earth will warm up.

What they don’t agree on is by how much. This issue is called ‘climate sensitivity’, the amount the temperatures will increase if CO2 is doubled from pre-industrial levels. Climate models have predicted the least temperature rise would be on average 1.65°C (2.97°F) , but upper estimates vary a lot, averaging 5.2°C (9.36°F). Current best estimates are for a rise of around 3°C (5.4°F), with a likely maximum of 4.5°C (8.1°F).

A rise of 0.8 degrees isn’t killing us (yet) but warming is accelerating and an increase of 3-4 degrees will have a potentially catastrophic effect.

Using high-resolution FTIR spectroscopy, we can measure the exact wavelengths of long-wave (infrared) radiation reaching the ground. CO2 is adding considerable warming, along with ozone (O3) and methane (CH4). This is called surface radiative forcing, and the measurements are part of the empirical evidence that CO2 is causing the warming. (Evans 2006)

We can measure the wavelengths of long-wave radiation leaving the Earth (upward radiation). Satellites have recorded the Earth’s outbound radiation. We can examine the spectrum of upward long-wave radiation in 1970 and 1997 to see if there are changes.

During the period when temperatures increased the most, emissions of upward radiation have decreased through radiative trapping at exactly the same wavenumbers as they increased for downward radiation. The same greenhouse gases are identified: CO2, methane, ozone etc. (Harries 2001)

We know CO2 absorbs and re-emits longwave radiation (Tyndall). The theory of greenhouse gases predicts that if we increase the proportion of greenhouse gases, more warming will occur (Arrhenius).

Scientists have measured the influence of CO2 on both incoming solar energy and outgoing long-wave radiation. Less longwave radiation is escaping to space at the specific wavelengths of greenhouse gases. Increased longwave radiation is measured at the surface of the Earth at the same wavelengths.

These data provide empirical evidence for the predicted effect of CO2.

You fail to realise that the warming we are seeing now in 150 years took 20,000 years in the past. You also seem to steadfastly ignore all the data which shows we ARE still warming with the majority of the warmth being absorbed by the oceans. We should be in a cooling cycle. We are not. Heaven help us when the next El Nino hits.

Michael TaylorMarch 17, 2014 at 9:13 am

You don’t know much, do you Kermit?

BacchusMarch 17, 2014 at 3:31 pm

Perhaps the slowly boiling frog (thanks for that Matters Not) should have clicked through to the discussion paper…

The Parliamentary Questions requested a statement of the relative likelihood of one statistical model rather than another, emulating the statistical properties of the instrumental record of global average temperature. The models concerned were a linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise and a driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model. The Met Office has performed this analysis as requested, noting however that the results depend on the starting date of the timeseries, and which of the three global surface temperature datasets is used.

The results show that the linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise is less likely to emulate the global surface temperature timeseries than the driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model. The relative likelihood values range from 0.001 to 0.32 for the time periods and datasets studied, where a value of 1 equates to equal likelihoods. This provides some evidence against the use of a linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise for the purpose of emulating the statistical properties of instrumental records of global average temperatures, as would be expected from physical understanding of the climate system.

This is not, however, evidence for the efficacy of the driftless autoregressive integrated model. Similar comparisons between the driftless (trendless) model and two autoregressive integrated models that allow for drift (trend) give likelihood values ranging from 0.45 to 2.58 for the HadCRUT4 dataset. The comparison is therefore inconclusive in terms of selecting the notionally best model. Furthermore, these comparisons do not provide evidence against the existence of a trend in the data.

These results have no bearing on our understanding of the climate system or of its response to human influences such as greenhouse gas emissions and so the Met Office does not base its assessment of climate change over the instrumental record on the use of these statistical models.

So the likelihood being discussed is the relative likelihood between two statistical models emulating the measured record.

In contrast, the slowly boiling frog claimed:

On 21 May 2013 Dame Julia Slingo stood before the House of Lords in the British Parliament and reported that there has been no statistically significant excursion in global temperatures since 1860. She also testified that this is correct with a probability of 999 out of 1000. In other words, the temperature excursions which occur on a regular 11 year cycle, as well an approximate 60 year cycle, are entirely due to the course of nature.

Nothing like what was actually happening… 🙄

BacchusMarch 18, 2014 at 7:34 am

Looks like the frog is now well done 😉

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DCMarch 10, 2014 at 5:31 pm

Time for a general strike
mikestasseMarch 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm

Hell may already be here……… heck this out:

A hundred years after it spawned the iceberg that sank the Titanic in the North Atlantic, the Jakobshavn Glacier is now a major contributor to global sea-level rise, this time threatening the homes and lives not of 2,200 passengers and crew but of a billion people across the world.

Jakobshavn is now shedding ice nearly three times as quickly as it was 20 years ago, dumping enormous and growing quantities into the ocean. It’s contributed 0.1 millimeters per year to worldwide sea-level rise — more than 3 percent of the 3 mm produced globally — for the past decade.

By 2000, the glacier was losing 11 kilometers in length every year, nearly twice the stable speed. As of last summer, according to a paper Joughin and others published recently in academic journal The Cryosphere, it was losing nearly 17 kilometers a year, retreating up the fjord into increasingly deep water that could cause it to melt even faster in the coming decades.

Jakobshavn’s dramatic change was recorded in the 2012 film “Chasing Ice,” in a compelling scene that captured the calving of a kilometer of ice in a single event. That happens throughout the summer, Joughin said, though not always in such significant individual moments. (When it does, though, global seismic monitors have been known to register them as 4 or 5 on the Richter scale, he said.)

Here’s the clip from the documentary:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU]

More about Greenland melting @ http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/science/global-warming/140228/global-warming-greenland-Jakobshavn-glacier-sea-level
Douglas EvansMarch 10, 2014 at 7:29 pm

Too late Kaye
We are already in free fall it’s just that most people haven’t noticed (yet) as they have their eyes tight shut, their fingers in their ears and are singing la, la, lahhhh at the top of their voices.
helenmargMarch 10, 2014 at 7:50 pm

good comment Douglas Evans. We have not much hope with this appalling government.There must be someone with brain power amongst this lot.Labor stop sitting on your hands and confront them.
Matters NotMarch 10, 2014 at 8:11 pm

Both the political and scientific ‘sells’ on addressing climate change have been disasters. Take ‘carbon pricing’ which was a political/policy response to a scientifically recognised problem. (But it wasn’t the only option.) Put simply, ‘carbon pricing’ was a means to an end. The policy was designed to cause ‘pain’ to those who directly (and then indirectly) generated greenhouse gases, in particular Carbon Dioxide.

In theory, the greater the ‘pain’ (means) – the greater the decline in CO2 generation (the end). But the politicians, on the ‘progressive’ side, completely lost the plot (and their nerve). They failed repeatedly to explain what the policy was all about. Again and again they claimed: ‘it won’t hurt much’, ‘you will be compensated’ and the like. They ran away from the fact it was supposed to hurt so that behaviour would change.

The political focus was on the ‘means’ while the ‘end’ disappeared from public discussion.

And I will leave the scientists to consider why their ‘calling’ has now been marginalised.
Stephen TardrewMarch 10, 2014 at 10:19 pm

Sigh! Right again Kaye.

Spot on Matters Not.

There are no words to say how I feel.
Matters NotMarch 11, 2014 at 12:09 am

While I don’t claim to be an expert on ‘carbon pricing’ across the world, I do know that in Britain, to choose but one example, car registration prices are based on one’s particular car’s carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the current car I drive, a Holden just on a year old, would be deemed to have ‘high emissions’ and the registration costs would reflect that. So much so that I would be tempted to sell and start again (if I was a British car owner). I think it’s called ‘market forces’.

But then again I am an Australian resident and car owner. I may wait and see if I am offered an incentive to buy a less carbon emitting vehicle under ‘direct action’.

Surely, I am a candidate for an ‘incentive’ to stop my car’s ‘pollution’. If not, then why not?

As for, Gina who gets a multi billion dollar diesel rebate for not using government funded roads, can someone tell me what rebate I get for not using the outrageous cost of education? (Just joking) And the like?

And I might add, what rebate do I get when Tony et al enjoys his bike riding at public expense while my cycling efforts are so unrewarded? (Perhaps I can claim, puncture expenses … whatever).
lmrh5March 11, 2014 at 1:14 am

Reblogged this on lmrh5.
mars08March 11, 2014 at 7:02 am

It’s hard NOT to be impressed with most of our fellow citizens…

They seem quite happy to endorse any amount of cruelty to a relative handful of scruffy brown people arriving on wooden boats… because unacceptable risk!!!!

But when it comes to doing something about the very real danger of climate change…. eh, it can wait…
Kermit the greenieMarch 14, 2014 at 12:42 pm

I often wonder if the creators of propaganda such as this ever stop to ask themselves questions such as the following:

If global warming were a worry, why has the global average atmospheric temperature been in a steady downward trend since the Holocene maximum eight thousand years ago?

Why would it have warmed at the same rate from 1980 to 1997 that it COOLED from 1940 to 1977?

Why would the late twentieth century “warming” be less than that from 1910 to 1940?

If global warming were a worry, why is it exactly the same temperature now that it was in 1650?

If carbon dioxide were related to temperature, why is there no correlation other than a distinct tendency to lag temperature by about 800 years?

If there were such a thing as a ‘greenhouse effect’, why would other planets exhibit a nearly identical lapse rate when compared with Earth, even though in one case the atmosphere is 98% CO2?

If CO2 had a causal effect relative to temperature, why would it have been colder during epochs when CO2 concentration was twenty times the current value?

If ‘global warming’ were something to be feared, why is it that homo sapiens prospered during warmer periods and suffered during colder periods?

If plants are unable to grow at CO2 under 250 ppm, and thrive at 1200 ppm, why would more CO2 be anything other than beneficial?

Since the sources of ‘anthropogenic’ CO2 are minuscule in comparison to natural sources, and more CO2 is beneficial to all life on planet Earth, why would the billion dollars a day wasted on green eco-loon shit be anything but a foolish expenditure?

Why would eco-loons and cranky green ‘useful idiots’ prefer a life of tyranny under a totalitarian dictatorship rather than the individual freedom of the past 500 years which has resulted in prosperity not even dreamed of by our ancestors?
Kaye LeeMarch 14, 2014 at 4:15 pm

You have just listed every ridiculous untruth being perpetrated by the denial movement and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. To answer every single one of your “theories”, every one of which has been disproven, go to the following site and look up the answers to all of your questions. You will find explanations with links and references to peer reviewed papers. Your information is incorrect. http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
Kermit the greenieMarch 14, 2014 at 5:44 pm

Those are facts. Learn to differentiate facts from fiction.If you knew even a skerrick of atmospheric physics you would understand that everything on SKS is fiction.
Kaye LeeMarch 14, 2014 at 5:53 pm

Excuse me if I choose to believe the 97% of scientists who agree and the fact that basically every peer-reviewed paper on the subject also disagrees with you. I would be interested to hear where you get your information from that gives you the certainty to go against the vast majority of all experts in the field. The source of information is extremely important. Can you tell me?
Kermit the greenieMarch 14, 2014 at 5:59 pm

So a logical fallacy is all you’ve got?
Kaye LeeMarch 14, 2014 at 7:12 pm

Your argument about the Holocene era comes from Christopher Monckton and is based on the temperatures from the top of the Greenland ice sheet. This data ends in 1855, long before modern global warming began. It also reflects regional Greenland warming, not global warming.

The average global surface temperature decreased slightly (0.1 degrees) from 1940 to 1975. The main reason behind this mid-century cooling was global dimming due to anthropogenic sulfate aerosol emissions.

Your comparison for warming in the late twentieth century is incorrect. Look at a graph.

CO2 didn’t initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming. In fact, about 90% of the global warming followed the CO2 increase. as ocean temperatures rise, oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere. In turn, this release amplifies the warming trend, leading to yet more CO2 being released. In other words, increasing CO2 levels become both the cause and effect of further warming.

The problem with Postma’s work about Venus is that he assumes a one-layer atmosphere, which is an absurd assumption when you approach the extremely high optical thickness of Venus. Venus has a 90 bar atmosphere that has well over 90% carbon dioxide, some water vapor, and a greenhouse effect generated by suluric acid droplets and SO2. The radiative transfer on Venus works much differently than on Earth, owing in part to intense collisional broadening of CO2 molecules. A photon has an extremely difficult time escaping Venus, unable to do so until it reaches the very outer parts of its atmosphere.

It is possible to boost growth of some plants with extra CO2, under controlled conditions inside of greenhouses. Based on this, ‘skeptics’ make their claims of benefical botanical effects in the world at large. Such claims fail to take into account that increasing the availability of one substance that plants need requires other supply changes for benefits to accrue. It also fails to take into account that a warmer earth will see an increase in deserts and other arid lands, reducing the area available for crops.

The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2 without removing any. A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20,000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken just 120 years.

Now will you answer me about the source of your information?
Michael TaylorMarch 14, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Kaye Lee, I don’t think that was the answer you were looking for. 😉
Kaye LeeMarch 14, 2014 at 9:15 pm

“Those are facts. Learn to differentiate facts from fiction.If you knew even a skerrick of atmospheric physics you would understand that everything on SKS is fiction.”

Every theory you have suggested is discussed on sceptical science with different levels of technical information, all with links and references to peer-reviewed papers. I can check the credentials of the authors and the response to the article amongst other scientists. I can read the observations, summaries and the recommendations.

Until you provide me with your sources I cannot do the same with the things you describe as “facts”. I would be ecstatic if the scientists were wrong and I would imagine anyone who could prove them so would be awarded the Nobel prize and live a life of luxury funded by the fossil fuel industry.

Show me the “logical fallacy”. Enlighten me with ground breaking research. It’s not that I don’t trust you…but I may not trust the person who told you.
Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 7:59 am

A rational individual considers the evidence provided by observation and applies reason and logic to reach a conclusion.

Because you appear to possess no understanding of the chemical and physical processes that we know as nature, your text amounts to nothing but gossip; a litany of “he said this and she said that”.

When faulty and flawed reasoning occurs in argumentation or rhetoric, the error is known as a logical fallacy. Logical fallacies are most often seen in the form of thoughtless generalizations or badly formed conclusions, and the study of breakdowns in logic is generally seen to be helpful in building skills in persuasive writing. However, the same faults that make for poor arguments in an essay are often used on purpose by politicians, journalists, and advertisers as they attempt to subvert their audiences into erroneous thinking. Reasoning that appeals to fears or prejudices rather than more positive rationales have historically been used to sway opinions and as techniques to steer attention from the issues at hand.
Your “arguments” consist solely of logical fallacies.

Your erroneous “97%” tactic is not only patently false, but meaningless as well. It is the logical fallacy of “argumentum ad publicum”, or the argument from omniscience. Examples of situations in which virtually everyone believed “the scientists’ are phrenology, eugenics, and Lysenkoism. Incidentally, you have been duped by the shonky cartoonist at your SKS. His “peer reviewed paper” is an excellent example of nonsense that is “peer reviewed”.

Your reasoning is frequently flawed by the illogical “argumentum ad vericundiam”, or the appeal to authority. Simply because an authority makes a claim does not necessarily mean he got it right.

Your entire post is fundamentally “argumentum ad baculum”, an argument based on an appeal to fear or a threat. You frequently use “argumentum ad populum”; an argument aimed to sway popular support by appealing to sentimental weakness rather than facts and reasons.

Your confirmation bias is a form of selective thinking that focuses on evidence that supports what believers already believe while ignoring evidence that refutes their beliefs.

I hope this helps, but, as will all religious zealots, your confirmation bias will always prevent your seeing the forest for the trees. It is a pity that there are a few people out there that are capable of taking your nonsense on board. Have a look at
Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 8:08 am

What a load of hot air.

I note you still will not provide references for your theories. Is this just stuff that you think is the case or are there scientific studies to back them up and if so please provide the source.

I note also that you completely dismissed every scientific explanation I gave to your theories, all of which I can provide sources for.

Your very long-winded post was nothing but an attempt at deflection as was your bombardment with every denialist argument all at once. Rather than allowing sensible discussion this sort of scattergun approach is intended to overwhelm.

You are a classic denialist and I have heard it all before and seen the tactics you use.

Show me your sources or stop wasting my time.
RoswellMarch 15, 2014 at 8:09 am

Kermit, so you’re basically suggesting that we should ignore the opinion of 97% of the worlds climate scientists and run with yours instead.

And your evidence is?
Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 8:48 am

You seem to do very well at wasting your own time. If you want to know, it is easy to find. You won’t find it on the charlatan’s page at SKS.
Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 9:14 am

Are you ashamed of your sources? Are you scared that I will check on the credentials of whoever is writing this stuff? Did you just read it somewhere and not do any checking to verify its credibility?

And actually I DID find every one of your arguments and where it came from on sceptical science. I have also read why they have been discounted. As I said, I am happy to provide links to scientific papers, something I note you are completely unwilling to do.

And I don’t consider exposing the “logical fallacies” in deniers’ arguments a waste of time but you have no argument. You are just regurgitating something but you apparently have no idea of where it comes from.
Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 9:45 am

Roswell, I’m not suggesting that you listen to anyone. Rather, I suggest that you pay heed to the data, mathematics, and physics.
Your “97%” nonsense is not only meaningless, but in reference to a simplistic questionnaire by Doran for which he apologised, or the fraudulent gag of John Cook.
Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 1:35 pm

Once again you refuse to state your sources. Let me state mine which refute your blowing in the wind.

Naomi Oreskes found no rejections of the consensus in a survey of 928 abstracts performed in 2004. Doran & Zimmerman (2009) found a 97% consensus among scientists actively publishing climate research. Anderegg et al. (2010) reviewed publicly signed declarations supporting or rejecting human-caused global warming, and again found over 97% consensus among climate experts. Cook et al. (2013) found the same 97% result through a survey of over 12,000 climate abstracts from peer-reviewed journals, as well as from over 2,000 scientist author self-ratings, among abstracts and papers taking a position on the causes of global warming.

In addition to these studies, we have the National Academies of Science from 33 different countries all endorsing the consensus. Dozens of scientific organizations have endorsed the consensus on human-caused global warming. Only one has ever rejected the consensus – the American Association of Petroleum Geologists – and even they shifted to a neutral position when members threatened to not renew their memberships due to its position of climate denial.

In short, the 97% consensus on human-caused global warming is a robust result, found using several different methods in various studies over the past decade. It really shouldn’t be a surprise at this point, and denying it is, well, denial.
BacchusMarch 15, 2014 at 2:37 pm

“I suggest that you pay heed to the data, mathematics, and physics.”

Ah, so you’re a climate scientist who has been studying the “data, mathematics and physics” for decades? You have published peer reviewed papers on climate science?

I didn’t think so 🙄
Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 4:31 pm

I did a survey using exactly the same technique used in a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor.
I sent an email to survey 10,257 people. I asked only two questions:
a) Does Santa Claus live at the North Pole?
b) Will Santa Claus come to your place Christmas Eve?

I was deeply disappointed with the results. Only 75 people answer in the affirmative to both questions. Two answered in the affirmative to the second.

I did some analysis and discovered that many of the people I had selected at random were not Christians, so
I discarded those results. Still I was disappointed and noticed a pattern. The 77 people were all five years old or less. Of these 77, only two did not respond to question one in the affirmative. I discarded all of the responses from anyone over the age of five, and voila!

I quickly concluded my survey, and published the thesis. My conclusion was that 75 of 77, or 97% respondents think that Santa Clause lives at the North Pole and will arrive at their house Christmas Eve. Professor Doran was in the Christmas Spirit, and had consumed far too many spirits while he was marking, and gave me an ‘A’. Then the University of Illinois published, and Professor Doran was thoroughly embarrassed, and had to apologise.
I did another survey using exactly the same techniques used by the cartoonist John Cook in a supposedly “scientific” paper Cook et al 2013.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/

I pretended to read the flyleaf of nearly 12,000 childrens’ books. Although I intended to read all of these intros in the beginning, I gave up and guessed at most of them. Any of them that contained the phrase “behaving badly” I assumed was written by either a sex maniac or a paedophile. I then dressed up this nonsense in an official looking paper and had a few friends over for a beer and they claimed that they had “peer reviewed” it. I then published as conclusive evidence that 97% of all childrens’ books are written by sex maniacs or paedophiles. Next I called up a few crooked journalists I know so that they could publish stories about my paper without even reading it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/

YOU have just made my point very well. It takes a particularly gullible fool to digest a load of total twaddle composed by posers like John Cook or Naomi Oreskes and then regurgitate it without having a clue as to how it was compiled or what it means.
Are you aware that 120 “peer reviewed scholarly papers” were recently retracted because they were gobbledegook created by computer software?

Springer, IEEE withdrawing more than 120 nonsense papers
Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 4:39 pm

Thank you for providing your source. here is the bio of the man who wrote the article you are quoting from.

“I am senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News. I write about energy and environment issues, frequently focusing on global warming. I have presented environmental analysis on CNN, CNN Headline News, CBS Evening News, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and several national radio programs. My environmental analysis has been published in virtually every major newspaper in the United States. I studied atmospheric science and majored in government at Dartmouth College. I obtained my Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.”
Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 4:52 pm

And your point is???? That is if you have a point.
Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 4:52 pm

The second article you linked to is a cautionary tale about checking the credibility of your sources and the credentials of authors. Exactly what I have been saying to you. Just because you read something written online by some guy who is paid by the Heartland Institute who in turn are paid by the Koch brothers doesn’t make it true.

You need to start reading what scientists say…and any that are still deniers, you will find are paid by the Heartland Institute or a similar body.
Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 5:19 pm

A quick check of the scientists mentioned in the article written by a guy from the Heartland Institute. See if you can spot the similarity…..

According to documents leaked from the Heartland Institute, Craig Idso has been receiving $11,600 a month from the Heartland Institute through his Center for the Study of CO2 & Global Change

Many of Scafetta’s skeptical opinion articles and publications were published by organizations known for doubting the existence of climate change (including the Heartland Institute, and the Science and Public Policy Institute). Scafetta was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change.

Nir Shaviv was a speaker (PDF) at the Eighth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-8)/Fifth International Conference on Climate and Energy (ICCE-5) sponsored by both the Heartland Institute and the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). Nir Shaviv was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s 7th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). Heartland’s ICCC7 collectively received over $67 million from ExxonMobil, the Koch Brothers and the conservative Scaife family foundations.

U.S. oil and coal companies, including ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, Koch Industries, and the world’s largest coal-burning utility, Southern Company, have contributed more than $1 million over the past decade to Willie Soon’s research. According to Greenpeace, every grant Dr. Soon has received since 2002 has been from oil or coal interests.

Nils-Axel Morner was a speaker (PDF) at the Eighth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-8)/Fifth International Conference on Climate and Energy (ICCE-5) sponsored by both the Heartland Institute and the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). Mörner was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s 2010 International Conference on Climate Change. After the conference, Mörner had a book signing for The Greatest Lie Ever Told. The Conference is sponsored by numerous global warming skeptic organizations, and in 2009 the event’s sponsors collectively received over $47 million from oil companies and right-wing foundations.

Alan Carlin was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s 7th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). Speaker at the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change. He is not a climate scientist.
Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 5:44 pm

You DID have a point. At least you are consistent.

It was the point I have been making all along. Rather than deal with the content, you consistently focus on who said it. That is the logical fallacy of the non-sequitor, or in the way you are using it, argumentum ad hominem.

So thanks for making my point for me AGAIN.
And by the way, if it were something from the Heartland Institute, the inference is that it was carefully developed and presented, and while that does not insure veracity, the probability that it is correct is about 99%. If it is something from SKS, on the other hand, the probability that it is pure, unadulterated, unsophisticated sophistry is 100%.
Kaye LeeMarch 15, 2014 at 5:48 pm

Oh come on. I spoke about the science in answer to you several posts ago and you completely ignored it and launched into a display of Latin that has nothing to do with anything.

If you would care to discuss one theory at a time I am more than happy to discuss the science. I do however like to see references. Your only one so far was to an article in Forbes magazine that had nothing to DO with the science.
Matters NotMarch 15, 2014 at 6:03 pm

Know what happens when a real sceptic deals with the data. Take the example of Richard Muller, a noted ‘sceptic’ at the time who along with other eminent scientists.

“…we are bringing the spirit of science back to a subject that has become too argumentative and too contentious, ….we are an independent, non-political, non-partisan group. We will gather the data, do the analysis, present the results and make all of it available. There will be no spin, whatever we find. We are doing this because it is the most important project in the world today. Nothing else comes close

When the study team was announced, blogger Anthony Watts, who popularized several of the issues addressed by the Berkeley Earth group study, stated

I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. The method isn’t the madness that we’ve seen from NOAA, NCDC, GISS, and CRU. That lack of strings attached to funding, plus the broad mix of people involved especially those who have previous experience in handling large data sets gives me greater confidence in the result being closer to a bona fide ground truth than anything we’ve seen yet

And the ‘outcome’: Muller stated:

Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause

Mugged by reality?
mars08March 15, 2014 at 6:12 pm

uh… ahem…

Really? Don’t you folks have something better to do???

DON’T FEED THE TROLLS!
Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 7:07 pm

Ah, THE SCIENCE. The Diety of the Church of Climatology religion. Have you met “THE SCIENCE”? Is THE SCIENCE male or female? Black or white? Tall or short?

If you want to talk science, let’s start with the null hypothesis. The thousand year old scientific method stipulates that the null hypothesis must be disproved before any completing hypothesis is proposed. After about thirty years of trying, your tribe has failed to disprove the null hypothesis, so that is all there is to an honest scientific argument. It’s game, set, and match.

I think it is important to identify just who is in denial here. There is no tropospheric hotspot as theory would dictate, there clearly hasn’t been an exponential (or even significant) rise in temperature since 1997 as predicted but rather an embarrassing lack of warming, all GCMs are running way too hot and actually diverging from observations, and with the lack of correlation of global temperature observations with model predictions actually INCREASING their confidence in their theory being the piece de resistance of denialism.

So, I think it is a case of put up or shut up. If you provide convincing evidence to confirm that we will be warming due to water vapour magnifying the effect of slowly rising CO2, then let’s see it.

(and by the way, mindless references to the BULLSHIT so prolific from the likes of John Cook, Bill McKibbon, James Hansen, Michael Mann, David Suzuki, or similar eco-loons. does not constitute EVIDENCE and only serves embarrasses you)
Kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 7:32 pm

What a load of old bollocks! Muller was never anything but a scammer. His entire BEST bullshit was a hoax. His daughter had a green magasine, Between the pair of them they siphened off millions.
BacchusMarch 15, 2014 at 8:46 pm

Hmmm, Kermit, your facade is slipping 😉
karabarMarch 15, 2014 at 8:53 pm

Busy watching the Commie/Fascist ALP/Green coalition take a richly deserved shit kicking in Tasmania.
Möbius EckoMarch 15, 2014 at 9:28 pm

Fascist ALP, now there is a prime bit of projection right there.

Anyway you analyse it neo-fascism fits the modern Liberals like a glove.

Plus the Commie tag really gives away the stupidity.

What will be your excuse when Tasmania goes backward under Federal/State Liberal governments and it’s environment is destroyed. No need to answer, you will blame Labor and the Greens.
kermit the greenieMarch 15, 2014 at 9:42 pm

Compare the Greens policy document with the demands of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party of 1929 and you will find them almost identical.
Compare the ALP web site with the Communist Manifesto and you will find them very similar,
Be very concerned about your liberty.
BacchusMarch 15, 2014 at 9:51 pm

Hmmm…. Sock puppets at work. ~~karabar~~ kermit the greenie’s arguments crumbling quickly here. Like most deniers’ arguments – holds no water, descends quickly into abyss…
Matters NotMarch 15, 2014 at 10:55 pm

kermit the greenie said:

Muller was never anything but a scammer

I wouldn’t know. Not sure of his history, but on paper at least, he looks impressive. But more importantly, given your penchant for ‘correctness’, isn’t that assertion an hominem argument?

Or do you have a different explanation of ‘reality’?

Then we have:

His entire BEST bullshit was a hoax

Right. And the other scientists who signed off on same? And the counter explanation is or was? Explanations please.

Then it becomes even more hilarious with:

His daughter had a green magasine (sic)

Yes Kermit, we know you have a hatred for ad hominem arguments. Perhaps a ‘slip of the tongue’?

Kermit, with all due respects, you describe yourself as a ‘frog’ and that’s perhaps an apt description, given you are being ‘slowly boiled’ on this site, and crucially, you don’t know it.
Matters NotMarch 15, 2014 at 11:54 pm

Crucially, when it comes to ‘climate science’ and the assertions made, there’s any number of ‘refereed’ articles that support same. Granted they are within an accepted scientific ‘paradigm’, but if there’s a new ‘paradigm’ (accompanied by a host of, so far, unpublished articles) please explain? Or better still, expound on this new ‘paradigm’.

Here’s a ‘starter’ for the boiling frog.

http://www.taketheleap.com/define.html

I’m always hopeful, it’s not too late.

But if you want to get a little deeper you might want to move from 101.

http://coraifeartaigh.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/kuhn-vs-popper-the-philosophy-of-lakatos/

But I suspect not? So much easier to be a Kermit sitting in the bottom of a pond?
Kermit the greenieMarch 16, 2014 at 8:51 am

There are several different “sciences”.
Ranked in order of increasing bullshit, they are:

Hard science
Shoddy science
Junk science
Fake science
The social sciences

The epistemology to which Lakatos refers might be applied to the social sciences.
For the physical sciences, it’s only Karl Popper’s.

Mainstream so-called “climate science” belongs in the junk and fake categories.
Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 1:07 pm

I would assume that the “null hypothesis” would be that man is not contributing to global warming.

To quote from your link

“The question Cook and his alarmist colleagues surveyed was simply whether humans have caused some global warming. The question is meaningless regarding the global warming debate because most skeptics as well as most alarmists believe humans have caused some global warming.”

Choosing 1998 to start comparisons of warming from is a well known trick. It was a very hot year. It has of course been surpassed with records being broken every year. Cherry-picking a very short time period ignores trends over much longer periods. It also ignores other variables like El Nino and sunspot activity and using only surface air temperatures is meaningless as the great majority of warming goes into our oceans. You also need to consider global temperatures, not just data from one spot.

“(and by the way, mindless references to the BULLSHIT so prolific from the likes of John Cook, Bill McKibbon, James Hansen, Michael Mann, David Suzuki, or similar eco-loons. does not constitute EVIDENCE and only serves embarrasses you)”

The closest you have come to providing a reference was an online article in Forbes written by some guy from the Heartland Institute. You gotta be kidding me. Let me try to get through to you….

Scientists rule, deniers drool.

(Hey, it works for Tony.)
Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 1:23 pm

Even if we focus exclusively on global surface temperatures, Cowtan & Way (2013) shows that when we account for temperatures across the entire globe (including the Arctic, which is the part of the planet warming fastest), the global surface warming trend for 1997–2012 is approximately 0.11 to 0.12°C per decade.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.2297/full

The next link shows how taking short time periods distorts the overall trends. Kids at school study this as an example of data manipulation.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47
Möbius EckoMarch 16, 2014 at 2:12 pm

Kermit the greenie/karabar. The documents and manifestos are nothing like the Greens and Labor platforms. What weed are you on?

On the other hand read up on neo-fascism and it fits Abbott like a glove. It wasn’t the last Labor government that covered themselves in secrecy and closed down open dialogue, but this current government certainly is shutting down democracy and plans for more.

The freedom you endear is being gradually lost at the hands of the party you mindlessly support and voted for.

Also note that Kermit the greenie doesn’t debate the science of global warming, but meaninglessly attacks the abstraction of it. Yet the very things he denigrates the science with, that is junk and fake etc. perfectly fits the vested interests and mouthpieces they employ to calumniate the verified and validated climate science.

it’s classic right wing projection and obfuscation.
Kermit the greenieMarch 16, 2014 at 2:20 pm

Null Hypothesis definition:

A type of hypothesis used in statistics that proposes that no statistical significance exists in a set of given observations. The null hypothesis attempts to show that no variation exists between variables, or that a single variable is no different than zero. It is presumed to be true until statistical evidence nullifies it for an alternative hypothesis.

In this situation, the null hypothesis is that no statistically significant excursion in the value of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures has occurred over the time interval for which data is available. This, by the way, is Popper falsifiable.

There is no statistically significant deviation in the record. Thus, the null hypothesis has never been disproved. On 21 May 2013 Dame Julia Slingo stood before the House of Lords in the British Parliament and reported that there has been no statistically significant excursion in global temperatures since 1860. She also testified that this is correct with a probability of 999 out of 1000. In other words, the temperature excursions which occur on a regular 11 year cycle, as well an approximate 60 year cycle, are entirely due to the course of nature.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/130521w0001.htm#13052174000434

You DO REALISE, I presume, the UK Meteorological office (the Met) which is under the control of Dame Slingo, is reputed to be at the very top of this game. Incidentally, the Met maintains the oldest temperature record in the world, called the CET or Central England Temperature record, which dates back to 1650. The mean temperature in the CET for that year is 9.5 C which is exactly the same for 2013.
So considering Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, if there is no warming, it is game over. It is nonsense to consider whether or not is “anthropogenic” if it does not exist, and it is equally ridiculous to consider whether or not it is “catastrophic”.
Just like Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, and the Unicorn, it is all in your imagination.

No warming at all in 17 years, 6 months.
Twice as many cold records as hot records.
Temperature corrrelation with TSI but definitely not CO2

WHO ARE THE “DENIERS” NOW?
Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 2:48 pm

I know what a null hypothesis is.

The link you provided has nothing to do with Dame Slingo or global temperatures – yes I do check them.

I would like to see the scientific paper that finds that no statistically significant excursion in the value of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures has occurred over the time interval for which data is available.

Could you show me the source of that information please?
Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 2:57 pm

Line plot of global mean land-ocean temperature index, 1880 to present (2013), with the base period 1951-1980. The graph shows an overall long-term warming trend. In the 1890s, the global temperature anomaly was on average slightly below -0.3 °C, in the 1940s, the global temperature anomaly was on average slightly below +0.1 °C, in the 2000s, the global temperature anomaly was on average slightly below +0.6 °C

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
BacchusMarch 16, 2014 at 3:06 pm

It would appear that “Kermit the slowly boiled” doesn’t understand what he’s reading. Have a read of this piece from the Met Kaye: https://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/a-response-on-statistical-models-and-global-temperature/
Kaye LeeMarch 16, 2014 at 3:13 pm

Well that just about answers it thanks Bacchus. Do you think Kermit thinks we will believe his crap just on his say so when it is so easily refuted by innumerable credible sources when he hasn’t got a one? Not ONE link to anything yet, just a whole pack of rot.
Matters NotMarch 16, 2014 at 11:46 pm

Must admit, I’m always interested in those who want to discuss the ‘philosophy’ of science or indeed any area of human endeavour.

The slowly boiling frog (AKA known as Kermit) asserts, without reservations:

For the physical sciences, it’s only Karl Popper’s

Seem that there is a total disregard of the contributions made by Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyeraband to the epistemological debate, but then again.

It matters not.

But, perhaps not?
Kermit the greenieMarch 17, 2014 at 7:41 am

“I know what a null hypothesis is”

Then why did you ask?.

“The link you provided has nothing to do with Dame Slingo or global temperatures – yes I do check them.”

The link is to Hansard; probably something you are not accustomed to reading. If you scroll down past the first few lines you will find a heading “Climate Change”. Julia Slingo does not address the upper house herself. Baroness Verma (essentially her boss) provides the report prepared by the Met Office.

“I would like to see the scientific paper that finds that no statistically significant excursion in the value of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures has occurred over the time interval for which data is available.”

You just did.

“Could you show me the source of that information please?”

May I suggest that you learn to use a search engine, such as Google or Bing? That way you could find things yourself. You might even discover there is a world of information out there which is not in concert with SKS or 360.org.
Kaye LeeMarch 17, 2014 at 8:04 am

I didn’t ask what a null hypothesis was. I am aware that the link was to Hansard. I often quote Hansard myself in articles but only when it is relevant and I would never quote what a politician says as some sort of scientific proof.

I read the few paragraphs under climate change. Baroness Verma does not provide a report. She discusses various different statistical methods. You completely misrepresented what was said and if you click onto the link provided by Bacchus you will actually read the truth from the Met office as opposed to what YOU say they said.

“You just did”? I must have blinked. You have not shown one skerrick of scientific information let alone a link to a scientific paper. You didn’t understand what you read from Hansard.

I know how to research which is why you are so easy to refute. The rubbish you talk is regurgitated on every denier blog and has been disproven, discredited, and in many cases derided. You really have to start reading what scientists write rather than what people who are paid by the Koch brothers via the Heartland Institute are feeding you. You have been duped.
Kermit the greenieMarch 17, 2014 at 8:47 am

The Met Office blog post to which you refer is smoke and mirrors. When clear and concise questions and accusations are answered with “word blizzards”, even the fly on the wall knows who’s blowing smoke.

Let’s clarify the meaning of “statistical significance” in the context of regression analysis. The purpose of doing a regression is to test a hypothesis. In this case, the hypothesis is that warming since 1980 exceeds normal climate fluctuations. It appears that the warming is in fact “not statistically significant”. That means the hypothesis that warming exceeds normal variability must be rejected. There is no proof that in fact, the warming is “unprecedented”, or even unusual.

Slingo’s paper, does not at any point prove that CO2 is the reason why the climate has warmed. She and everyone else involved in it has not put forward a satisfactory explanation as to why there has been no GW for the last 17 years and 6 months despite the headlining 400ppm atmospheric CO2.

Do you consider a rise in global temperature of 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1880 to be significant? You experience that when you walk from one side of a room to the other and you do not even notice it. What if you compare it to the Holocene Optimum? Or the Minoan, or the Roman, or the Medieval? How does that compare with temperatures 137 million years ago before the big cold plunge into the Cretaceous?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Great Lakes are frozen over. Niagara Falls is frozen. Temperatures are responding to the sun’s activity, or lack of it. You are the one that is duped. And attempting to dupe everyone else.
Kaye LeeMarch 17, 2014 at 9:27 am

In one breath you say “You DO REALISE, I presume, the UK Meteorological office (the Met) which is under the control of Dame Slingo, is reputed to be at the very top of this game. ” and then you say “The Met Office blog post to which you refer is smoke and mirrors.” Hmmmm………

Perhaps I should explain that I have studied both science and statistics at university so no need for your explanations of terminology. Statistical significance is one measurement and the longer the time frame the more accurate the result. For example, if you look at warming from 1983 to 1998 it is not statistically significant but if you change the test to from 1982 to 1998 it IS statistically significant. Statistics alone cannot cover all climate science.

The claim that the increase in global warming is larger than could be explained by natural variability has a clear and well understood grounding in fundamental physics and chemistry. There is very high confidence (using the IPCC’s definition) that the global average net effect of human activities since 1850 has been one of warming. The basis for this claim is not, and never has been, the sole use of statistical models to emulate a global temperature trend. Instead it is based on hundreds of years of scientific advancement, supported by the development of high-quality observations and computational modeling.

According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)…the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8°Celsius since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade.

Nearly all scientists have reached the same conclusion: if we increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the Earth will warm up.

What they don’t agree on is by how much. This issue is called ‘climate sensitivity’, the amount the temperatures will increase if CO2 is doubled from pre-industrial levels. Climate models have predicted the least temperature rise would be on average 1.65°C (2.97°F) , but upper estimates vary a lot, averaging 5.2°C (9.36°F). Current best estimates are for a rise of around 3°C (5.4°F), with a likely maximum of 4.5°C (8.1°F).

A rise of 0.8 degrees isn’t killing us (yet) but warming is accelerating and an increase of 3-4 degrees will have a potentially catastrophic effect.

Using high-resolution FTIR spectroscopy, we can measure the exact wavelengths of long-wave (infrared) radiation reaching the ground. CO2 is adding considerable warming, along with ozone (O3) and methane (CH4). This is called surface radiative forcing, and the measurements are part of the empirical evidence that CO2 is causing the warming. (Evans 2006)

We can measure the wavelengths of long-wave radiation leaving the Earth (upward radiation). Satellites have recorded the Earth’s outbound radiation. We can examine the spectrum of upward long-wave radiation in 1970 and 1997 to see if there are changes.

During the period when temperatures increased the most, emissions of upward radiation have decreased through radiative trapping at exactly the same wavenumbers as they increased for downward radiation. The same greenhouse gases are identified: CO2, methane, ozone etc. (Harries 2001)

We know CO2 absorbs and re-emits longwave radiation (Tyndall). The theory of greenhouse gases predicts that if we increase the proportion of greenhouse gases, more warming will occur (Arrhenius).

Scientists have measured the influence of CO2 on both incoming solar energy and outgoing long-wave radiation. Less longwave radiation is escaping to space at the specific wavelengths of greenhouse gases. Increased longwave radiation is measured at the surface of the Earth at the same wavelengths.

These data provide empirical evidence for the predicted effect of CO2.

You fail to realise that the warming we are seeing now in 150 years took 20,000 years in the past. You also seem to steadfastly ignore all the data which shows we ARE still warming with the majority of the warmth being absorbed by the oceans. We should be in a cooling cycle. We are not. Heaven help us when the next El Nino hits.
Michael TaylorMarch 17, 2014 at 9:13 am

You don’t know much, do you Kermit?
BacchusMarch 17, 2014 at 3:31 pm

Perhaps the slowly boiling frog (thanks for that Matters Not) should have clicked through to the discussion paper…

The Parliamentary Questions requested a statement of the relative likelihood of one statistical model rather than another, emulating the statistical properties of the instrumental record of global average temperature. The models concerned were a linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise and a driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model. The Met Office has performed this analysis as requested, noting however that the results depend on the starting date of the timeseries, and which of the three global surface temperature datasets is used.

The results show that the linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise is less likely to emulate the global surface temperature timeseries than the driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model. The relative likelihood values range from 0.001 to 0.32 for the time periods and datasets studied, where a value of 1 equates to equal likelihoods. This provides some evidence against the use of a linear trend model with first-order autoregressive noise for the purpose of emulating the statistical properties of instrumental records of global average temperatures, as would be expected from physical understanding of the climate system.

This is not, however, evidence for the efficacy of the driftless autoregressive integrated model. Similar comparisons between the driftless (trendless) model and two autoregressive integrated models that allow for drift (trend) give likelihood values ranging from 0.45 to 2.58 for the HadCRUT4 dataset. The comparison is therefore inconclusive in terms of selecting the notionally best model. Furthermore, these comparisons do not provide evidence against the existence of a trend in the data.

These results have no bearing on our understanding of the climate system or of its response to human influences such as greenhouse gas emissions and so the Met Office does not base its assessment of climate change over the instrumental record on the use of these statistical models.

So the likelihood being discussed is the relative likelihood between two statistical models emulating the measured record.

In contrast, the slowly boiling frog claimed:

On 21 May 2013 Dame Julia Slingo stood before the House of Lords in the British Parliament and reported that there has been no statistically significant excursion in global temperatures since 1860. She also testified that this is correct with a probability of 999 out of 1000. In other words, the temperature excursions which occur on a regular 11 year cycle, as well an approximate 60 year cycle, are entirely due to the course of nature.

Nothing like what was actually happening… 🙄
BacchusMarch 18, 2014 at 7:34 am

Looks like the frog is now well done 😉

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