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Tag Archives: Andrew Bolt

If you haven’t read Dickens, you’re not qualified to teach Chemistry!

 

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Benjamin Franklin. (Often attributed to Albert Einstein who was quoting Franklin)

A few years ago there was a suggestion that the number of novels that Victorian Year 12 English students could be reduced by one. There was an outcry, and the proposal was dropped.

Andrew Bolt was particularly scathing about the idea that students be allowed to study a film or a play, instead of a novel, and he devoted a whole article to how we would be losing our culture if the study of Shakespeare was no longer mandated in Year 12 English. I sent him a comment – which he never published, of course – where I pointed out that Shakespeare had only ever been compulsory in Year 12 Literature, and that was several years ago. And where I made the rather important point that Shakepeare actually wrote plays and sonnetts, not novels.

Whether not studying Dickens and the Classics actually destroys civilisation as we know it, however, is a debate for another time. I just bring this up because the Bolt example is fairly typical of what happens when non-educators start talking about the education system. It’s not that I don’t think that they have a right to make input, it’s just that their input needs to be balanced against what actually happens in schools, and what anyone with any experience in education can predict about particular proposals. Take, the recent NSW suggestion to make Maths compulsory in Year 12.

Ok, I’m sure that the first reaction of a large number of people is that we need to improve our Maths skills, so this is a damn fine idea. So before we continue, I’d like to ask a simple question.

maths question

Right. I’ve just divided you into two classes of people. There are those, who are can answer that and those who can’t.

If you can, I suspect you probably think that compulsory maths is a good idea. If you can’t, you’re probably thinking either it isn’t a good idea, or why are you asking me for, I’m not going to do Year 12?

To those who can answer, I would like to say that I value your opinion, and I’ll respect it even more, if you spend six weeks trying to explain trigonometry to the kids who wanted to drop Maths at the end of Year 10.

The trouble with suggestions such as making Maths compulsory to the end of Year 12 is that very little thought is given to the actuality of doing something like this. Granted, there are a number of students who lack numeracy skills when they leave school, but another year or two of Maths isn’t going to improve them, unless there’s a totally different approach to the one that failed to give them adequate numeracy skills in the eleven years of school that they’d already completed.

While I was a teacher, I spent a number of years where I was responsible for students making a change to the subjects studied at senior level. Every year towards the end of first semester, I would have at least one conversation that went something like this:

“I want to drop Maths and pick up something else?”

“Why?”

“I’m failing miserably. I’ve never been any good at Maths.”

“Then why did you pick it?”

“My parents thought I should keep my options open.”

At this point I was always tempted to ask how parents thought that failing Maths at Year 11 was keeping one’s options open. Or did they think that suddenly the student would decide that a career as an engineer was suddenly a better option than one of the areas where this student was actually demonstrating a skill. (As an aside, I actually remember a parent ringing me when their son had just dropped Business Management. “English, Music, Drama? Where’s the potential career in that?” Given that the father HAD signed the permission form for the change of subject, I don’t know what he wanted me to say. Anyway, every time I read an article or see the son on TV, I think that he seems to have worked out a better career path than if he’d done Accounting, Business Management and Maths. We’re not all the same!)

So how exposing these kids to another year or two of maths is expected to improve the numeracy skills of the nation is meant to work, I don’t know. The vast majority of students who are a competent at Maths continue with it. In my entire teaching career, I never heard any kid say that they wished they’d continued with their maths, but I heard plenty say that they didn’t know why they did.

As for the logistics…

How, when they already have a shortage of maths teachers, do they intend to staff the extra classes?

But I guess problems with numeracy isn’t just limited to the general population!

Not Another Post About Climate Change!!!

 

How many Andrew Bolts does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: None, because it’s daytime and the past few hours have been getting lighter. There’s no proof of the need for lightbulb change, and besides, what difference would changing one lightbulb make. There’s no need to change a lightbulb until everyone else does!

On Friday, I wrote a response to John McLean’s article in “The Age” in which he questioned the IPCC. If you read the response, you’ll note that I raised questions about the funding of the “International Climate Science Coalition” and whether, when one looks at its core values, one can really say that they are scientific in nature. I also made the point that the arguments used by many who wish to dispute climate change had a very similar ring to the arguments used by the tobacco industry in the 1950s. At no point did I suggest a link between the tobacco industry and the “International Climate Science Coalition”.

As a humble blogger, I was surprised to receive the attention of both the writer of the article and the executive director of the “Coalition” within a couple of hours. The writer of the article used all his skills of persuasion to counter my arguments:

“What a pathetic piece from Rossleigh. Such attention to detail! The Age spells my surname correctly but Rossleigh gets it wrong despite the bio extract from The Age. Now let me see if I understand Rossleigh’s correctly … I think the claim is that I am wrong because I am a member of a certain coalition that can, with some contortions, be linked to the legal defence of tobacco companies. Hmmm … surely if Rossleigh figured that my claims about the IPCC, UNFCCC and others were wrong then surely those errors would have been discussed here instead of the pathetic ad hominem attack.

“I provide my URL so that any who is interested (and somehow I doubt that many people who haunt this blog will) can read my other documents including the unheard of action of a scientific journal not allowing authors the right of reply.”

I also provide Mr McLean’s URL.

Mr Harris, the executive director also seemed to think that, while it was entirely reasonable to question the motives and funding of climate sciencists, to question his organisation shouldn’t be allowed, and that it was an “ad hominem” attack. (Can questioning an organisation be an “ad hominem” attack? I’ll let the pedants work that one out.) He made a number of comments – apparently he doesn’t have anything better to do – but among them was this:

Kaye Lee, you have not answered my charge:

“Please show us exactly where it has been demonstrated that a large majority of climate experts who study the causes of climate change agree that: human produced carbon dioxide emissions is causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming (and other deliterious climate change).”

The reason no one properly demonstrates this is because the idea of consensus on this topic among these people is an urban legend and of no merit what-so-ever.

To which I replied:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus

Note: it does only say “very likely” because scientists often remain circumspect about possibilities. They establish hypotheses which can be disproved. They do not have “core principles” which begin with conclusions such as we find on the ICSC website.

Of course, that site was not “evidence”, because as he put it:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus is simply a statement by an official government body, rossleighbrisbane. Neither it, nor the sources they cite “demonstrate that a large majority of climate experts who study the causes of climate change agree that: human produced carbon dioxide emissions is causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming (and other deliterious climate change).”

Now, part of me would like to encourage you to have a look at the site and make up your own mind. But, then I know that any source one finds on the internet can be countered with another source. Or the figures disputed. And, let’s not forget that while Harris demands that one finds information to back this “urban myth”, he also concludes that it doesn’t have “any merit what-so-ever. (sic)”. So one could waste an enormous amount of time attempting to prove that the majority of climate scientists generally agree, only to be told that it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re right.

Particularly if you start from the point that we must not trust the government or climate scientists, who are accused of indulging in rhetoric without regard to facts. On the other hand, in an article co-authored with Dr Tim Ball, Harris asserts:

Coal-fired electricity must be replaced with “clean energy” to save the climate, they still say. This approach completely disregards what happened in Europe when that approach was tried: economies collapsed and people froze to death, driven into poverty by unmanageable energy bills.

And here I was blaming the GFC for the economies of Europe collapsing!

Of course, the thing that is becoming more and more obvious is that the climate deniers always try to set the terms of the “debate”. For example, unless you can prove that a majority of climate scientists agree we need to do nothing, or unless you can prove that acting now on climate change will make any difference, we might as well wait. Or show us what China’s doing! And why are you kicking that way, when the goal posts have been shifted?

But as with smoking – and I’m not drawing any links between the Heartland Institute and tobacco here – it really doesn’t matter who believes what. In the end, it was found to be harmful. (Perhaps, some may argue that the science isn’t conclusive here either!) If you’d given up smoking when the first reports came out you’d probably have lived longer. I say probably before someone points out Uncle Fred gave up smoking and two days later got hit by a truck!.

It’s difficult not to allow the important questions to be sidetracked. What does the evidence suggest? What are the potential consequences of taking action? What are the potential consequences of inaction? What needs to be done?

In Australia, in the debate over the ETS, Abbott said that it would be better to have a simple tax. When Labor introduced a carbon tax, suddenly Direct Action is better. No wonder many people started to switch off and decide the whole thing was too hard.

And for those of you wondering about the “Direct INaction Plan”. Here’s the latest. Direct Action.

Fruitcakes of a Feather

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Should the Government ban The Greens?

A few years ago, the Howard Government introduced several anti-terrorism laws.

The Sedition Laws were strengthened. Now, sedition is one of those laws that is, like beauty and bias, very much in the eye of the beholder. (I think it’s worth pointing out that the most famous sedition cases in Australian history involved the Eureka Rebellion, and the Shearer’s Strike, both well over a hundred years ago.) To quote Greg Hunt’s authorative source, Wikipedia,

“Sedition is In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority”.

Some people expressed concern that, given our “war on terrorism” how exactly do you define the “enemy”, and the Australian laws could, therefore, be used to suppress legitimate criticism of the Australian Government. The response of the Howard Government was basically to assure us that we shouldn’t worry about the actual wording of the law, because we could trust them to use it “responsibly”. I argued at the time that not all future governments may be as trustworthy.

There were a number of amendments added a safeguard and, not being a lawyer, I can’t vouch for how strongly they protect the individual’s right to criticise the government. But from my limited legal knowledge, the safeguards use a similar “good faith” exemption to the Racial Vilification Laws.

When John Pilger made comments about the occupying forces in Iraq being “legitimate targets” for the Iraqi people, many people were outraged. While I’m sure that nobody in Iraq was expecting a surge in Iraqis joining the insurgents thanks to Pilger giving his permission, it was perceived by many that his comments bordered on sedition and there were suggestions that he could be charged.

Andrew Bolt had this to say about John Pilger while the debate raged.

On Wednesday Pilger appeared on ABC TV’s Lateline to promote his noxious views. This apologist for terrorists – this moral pygmy – is … welcomed into an ABC Studio and promoted by SBS …

Not all the enemies of our civilisation are Islamic or foreigners. Many are people we pay to defend our culture, but, we find, betray it instead.

— Sunday Herald Sun, 14 March 2004

And, of course, part of the concern of media organisations was that they could be considered guilty of sedition for simply reporting what someone had said. Bolt – it seems – supported the view that the ABC were equally enemies of the state for simply reporting Pilger’s views.

Sedition, however, wasn’t the only change implemented by Howard. ASIO were given permission to hold people for questioning without charge for a period of 48 hours if it believed that they were about to commit a terrorist act, or had information about a terrorist act. Without going through all tweaking of this detention power there are two important provisions that are still the case today. Not only are you not permitted to inform anyone of the details of your interview, but you are not allowed to inform anyone of your detention. Neither is your lawyer. No, not your family. Not your employer. Nobody. It is illegal.

Of course, this makes perfect sense when you imagine ASIO dealing with the person planning to commit a terrorist act. It may even make sense if you’re talking about their next door neighbour who have been interviewed by ASIO to find out if they’ve seen anything.

The trouble is that ASIO may not always be the organisation it is now. Just as the Howard Government was not going to go on forever, what if – as ridiculous as it sounds – a future government appointed lackeys to the head of ASIO and declared that certain political opponents were “the enemy”?

No, of course, it won’t happen. This isn’t the sort of thing that happens in a country like Australia. It happens in the sort of country where people are locked up without charge. (Oh, wait, that’s us now, but that’s ok because they’re coming to the country illegally!) But my point is that the only thing stopping it from happening is the fact that we all know that Tony Abbott won’t declare The Greens an illegal, seditious group any time soon. The actual law enables a Government to “silence” it’s critics fairly easily.

Of course, the strange thing is that it’s not these laws that’s attrecting the attention of the IPA and complany. It’s the Racial Vilification law.

And exactly, who’s been detained or jailed under the Racial Vilification Laws? I can’t find any media story that records anything more than a fine, or a demand for a retraction of incorrect information.

Who’s been detained under the Anti-terrorism laws? Well, how would we know, unless the Government decides to tell us?

Greens

Message Control

I think we all agree that Labor shot itself in the foot by using the media to broadcast their internal squabbles. Conceding that, far greater forces were at play.

The other seemingly obvious cause was Labor’s failure to get their message across. Their achievements in government were significant, their policies were vastly superior (in most cases), and their ministers, if not overly charismatic, were at least competent and knowledgeable in their portfolios.

We all watched with increasing concern as they allowed the Coalition, ably abetted by the Murdoch press, to dictate the message. Carbon pricing became a “lie” and a “toxic tax”. Rather than answering this campaign with the obvious advantages of carbon pricing in dealing with climate change, they went into defence mode and we now find the carbon tax being blamed for everything to do with the economy, investment, manufacturing, jobs and cost of living.

It doesn’t seem to matter that the economy has a AAA credit rating, that we have had record investment, and that the average household is $14 000 a year better off now than they were in 2007. It doesn’t seem to matter that, until very recently, the mainstream business community was behind carbon pricing. It doesn’t seem to matter what reasons businesses give for closing, we are told it’s the carbon tax. And even after the repeal of the carbon tax is underway, and we still see businesses closing, it’s still the fault of the carbon tax.

In an astonishing transformation, we saw Tony Abbott move from an attack dog to Prime Minister, from misogynist to Minister for Women, from telling Aborigines they should pick up rubbish to crowning himself Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

The Opposition had a strategy to keep the focus on the Government, to present a small target, to keep it simple and to exploit fear and populism. In other words, they controlled the message. They began the campaign with the infamous headless chook ad but when it was panned as childish and inappropriate they quickly morphed into the ‘adults’ carrying out a positive campaign warning us that Labor would get nasty. Actually, looking back, the ‘negative’ ads from Labor were quite prophetic.

So the Coalition won, promising us transparency and accountability – no surprises. They assumed they would be able to control the message in government as they had so successfully in opposition. Tony began by shutting the Indonesian press out of his first press conference on their soil. It did not go over well. His tough guy rhetoric for the domestic market has not been well received on the international stage.

His obsession with axing the tax might have done well for Tony here where he, along with people like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones, have convinced many people that climate change is crap. In the rest of the world his actions are being condemned and his rhetoric is being drowned out by the latest IPCC report and the growing commitment of other world leaders to take action on climate change.

In a further attempt to control the message, all interviews with Ministers have to be approved by the Prime Minister’s Office 24 hours prior to the interview. Scott Morrison is perfecting hiding the boats and Joe Hockey won’t tell us why the debt ceiling needs to be increased. Julie Bishop refuses to disclose details about any of her meetings with foreign leaders and the briefings from departments to the incoming government will not be released.

Newly appointed head of NBNco, former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski, has certainly changed his message from 2003 when Telstra told the Senate Committee that the copper network was at “5 minutes to midnight” to now, when he told them it is “robust”. He has also been instructed not to talk to the media.

Experienced public servants have been sacked in their droves and an ‘Independent’ review panels have been set up to look at … well … just about everything. The trouble is that these review panels are composed of ex-Liberals and businessmen who have already expressed very strong views about what they are supposed to be reviewing, and as they have only been given a few months to prepare their advice, they will not be consulting with other concerned bodies. I would suggest these panels have been selected because they already know the message they are supposed to give.

We have BHP advising on climate change, the BCA which represents banks and mining companies doing the Commission of Audit, the former head of the Commonwealth Bank reviewing the finance sector, and one of the fiercest critics of Labor’s NBN, columnist for The Australian Henry Ergas, on the three man panel to do a cost-benefit analysis of the NBN.

And now we having Tony Abbott’s speeches being airbrushed from history – or is it is lies being airbrushed from history? – and his ‘excuse’ for the back flip on school funding highlights what could best be described as a classic case of ‘gaslighting’ (as pointed out by one of The AIMN’s readers):

“We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made, or the promise that some people might have liked us to make”.

From Wikipedia: “Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity”. With the amount of message control we are being fed that certainly appears to be a technique of the Abbott Government.

Eric Hoffer once said “Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves”. With the growing reach of the fifth estate, it is becoming harder to control the message and there is little excuse for self-deception. However, we should remember that:

“If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.”

– Thomas Sowell.

We need to put message control into the control of the right people.

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What If Bolt Had Been Given The Job…

Andrew Bolt’s Application to Host Media Watch

TO Mark Scott, ABC managing director:

…Don’t assume I’m not available. Hear that ripping sound? That was my contract for my Network 10 show.

Mark, I want you to know I stand ready to serve when your current host, Jonathan Holmes, stands down by the end of the month, as I read…

From Andrew Bolt’s Blog, 2nd May, 2013

Sources tell me that Andrew Bolt wasn’t actually considered for the job of Media Watch host as there were a few technicalities with his application. The first was that he never actually submitted it – he only shared it via his blog. There’s a longstanding tradition in applying for jobs in this country that one doesn’t do it in via a national newspaper. (The exception to this being when one wishes to take over as leader of a political party. Then one may declare that one is available, that one has no intention of challenging for the leadership or simply tell a journalist that – off the record – there’ll be a challenge within weeks.)

So what if Bolt had actually applied and been successful? I suspect we’d have got something like the following:

Hello, I’m Andrew Bolt, welcome to Media Watch.

After October’s ridiculous attempt by climate alarmists to politicise the NSW fires and to link them to their scare campaign, we now get this from the ABC’s news bulletin:

“HEATWAVE LINKED TO CLIMATE CHANGE”

The bulletin then went on to quote some Professor without pointing out that this person had a vested interest in the topic. He has been studying climate science for the past twenty-three years. Hardly what I’d call a disinterested party. Of course, the usual suspects jumped on this story. From a newspaper which I won’t name because of the ABC’s ridiculous no brand names because it contravenes advertising policy, which, by the way, previous hosts of this show used to flout quite regularly, but my freedom of speech was suppressed when I just mentioned in last week’s show what a great drink coke was and thanked Mercedes for the great deal they gave me on the car:

“MORE HOT WEATHER TO COME”

This hysterical article then went on to predict another five days of temperatures above thirty degrees, ignoring the evidence that last night cooled to a mere twenty-two degrees. Then having softened us up, the opinion page had this letter:

“When is this direct-action policy of Abbott’s going to start? This hot weather should get us all thinking.“

Since when did weather have anything to do with the climate? This completely overlooks that fact that we’ve had weather going back to the time that Captain Cook first discovered this uninhabited land. And as for the letter writer’s obvious left wing bias in demanding thinking, well, it should be no surprise that the writer of this letter had, in fact, completed his secondary education. These sort of academics are good at twisting arguments, but most of my readers are down to earth folk who intuitively know that I’m right.

Of course, the ABC has been trying to suggest the world is warming for decades. Such as this from 1972:

 

 

Admittedly, that was the American ABC, but the point remains. Of course, we’re used to the Bolshevik view coming from the ABC, but now the so called “free press” has joined in. The latest IPCC evidence shows that these ‘warmists’ are just plain wrong. I call for all journalists at non-Murdoch owned papers to be sacked and the ABC to be privatised immediately.

Now, unto a rather troubling matter. Again, there have been complaints about Alan Jones getting some minor detail wrong and calls for him to be removed from the air. These sort of politically correct attempts at censorship must be stopped. So what if he’s a few degrees or a couple of hundred percentage points out – this makes no difference to his actual argument that certain people need to take a good hard look at themselves and would benefit from a sound caning. As an ex-private school boarding master, Alan knows all about the benefits of that. Freedom of speech is one of our most important principles.

Until next time, I’ve been Andrew Bolt and you people listen to the ABC so you must be wrong.

Good Night.

 

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Well, that was embarrassing, Andrew …

27 October 2013 (2:29pm) was an auspicious moment for commentator, media tart and Murdoch minion Andrew Bolt. It was the moment in his professional life where he finally cast-off any lingering doubt as to his status as an intellectually dishonest dunderhead. In an entry to his Herald Sun blog, he attempted to simultaneously defend Environment…

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Crap, Hogwash, Wikipedia and Other Strong Evidence

“I mean in the end this whole thing is a question of fact, not faith, or it should be a question of fact not faith and we can discover whether the planet is warming or not by measurement. And it seems that notwithstanding the dramatic increases in man made CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world’s warming has stopped. Now admittedly we are still pretty warm by recent historical standards but there doesn’t appear to have been any appreciable warming since the late 1990s.”

Tony Abbott: A REALIST’S APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE Speech – July, 2009

From Abbott’s Interview with Andrew Bolt:

Bolt: (Volunteering to fight) the fires. Was there an element of running away from the office?

PM: Ha! Mate, I got up to the station at 4pm Saturday and I got back to the station at 10 Sunday morning. So there’s no question of running away from the office, because the office is closed then. The office is closed.

AB: I’ve been struck by the insanity of the reaction in the media and outside, particularly linking the fires to global warming and blaming you for making them worse potentially by scrapping the carbon tax.

PM: I suppose, you might say, that they are desperate to find anything that they think might pass as ammunition for their cause, but this idea that every time we have a fire or a flood it proves that climate change is real is bizarre, ’cause since the earliest days of European settlement in Australia, we’ve had fires and floods, and we’ve had worse fires and worse floods in the past than the ones we are currently experiencing. And the thing is that at some point in the future, every record will be broken, but that doesn’t prove anything about climate change. It just proves that the longer the period of time, the more possibility of extreme events … The one in 500 year flood is always a bigger flood than the one in 100 year flood.

Bolt: The ABC, though, has run on almost every current affairs show an almost constant barrage of stuff linking climate change to these fires.

Abbott: That is complete hogwash.

Bolt: It is time to really question the bias of the ABC?

Abbott: But people are always questioning the “bias” of the ABC.

Later in the same interview:

PM: I would say that there tends to be an ABC view of the world, and it’s not a view of the world that I find myself in total sympathy with. But, others would say that there’s a News Limited view of the world.

From “The most depressing Discovery about the Brain, Ever”

“In other words, say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn’t the real problem. The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are. We want to believe we’re rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe.

For years my go-to source for downer studies of how our hard-wiring makes democracy hopeless has been Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth.

Nyan and his collaborators have been running experiments trying to answer this terrifying question about American voters: Do facts matter?

The answer, basically, is no. When people are misinformed, giving them facts to correct those errors only makes them cling to their beliefs more tenaciously.”

And just in case you missed it at the time:

“I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change.” (Tony Abbott, quoted on the “ABC 7.30 Report” (27 July 2009).

People are entitled to their own point of view. We all accept that. It’s a free country, after all. I’m sure that Andrew Bolt would agree that we’re all entitled to express a point of view. Even if it’s demonstrably wrong. For goodness sake, if Bolt had to rely on facts for his point of view, he wouldn’t have a column.

The trouble with the exchange of opinions is that it very rarely goes beyond, “You’re wrong and I’m right, therefore nothing you have to say could change my mind.”

And so I find our beloved leader’s comments – the ones I highlighted – in the Bolt interview disturbing. Tony Abbott seems to be saying that extreme events aren’t evidence of anything, and it doesn’t matter how many we have, that’s just the nature of things. Records are made to be broken, after all.

This is fairly consistent with the way in which climate deniers view things. One extreme weather event is just the exception. Two is just coincidence. Three, well, that’s the norm – we have weather like this all the time.

Now, I think that there is a discussion to be had about how much of a link can be drawn between climate change and the current bushfires. And I have some sympathy for the view that maybe Adam Bandt could have timed his comments a little more sensitively. I can accept that we’ve always had large bushfires and that, in the distant past, some of them even occured in October.

However, I think that we need to actually look very closely at the evidence – even if it means hours on the computer looking up Wikipedia. To say, as one person wrote in response to the Climate Council’s Bushfires and Climate Change in Australia – The Facts (which suggested that bushfires in the last thirty years had been more frequent), that we had large bushfires in the past too. The person then went on to talk of three over the space of sixty years prior to 1983.

It’s difficult to argue about climate change when people like Bolt and Abbott seem to suggest that every event can be taken in isolation and therefore nothing is part of any pattern. Bolt may be right. There may be no significant warming. But he is no more of less qualified to assert his position than the bloke down at the pub who tells me that Greater Western Sydney will make next year’s Grand Final. He is not an expert and lacks formal training in the area – something that he is quick to point out about those he disagrees with. After arguing for years that the climate is actually cooling, Bolt jumped on the IPCC report which suggested the planet wasn’t WARMING as fast as they predicted, completely ignoring the fact that this went against his contention.

So, records are always being broken, according to the Prime Minister. Linking the fires to climate change is “complete hogwash”. We don’t need a Climate Commission to look at evidence. We know these things. Who needs a Science Minister? It’s either part of trade, or something you do at school. Science, itself, what’s that?

As for the Audit Commission, who thinks that they may recommend delaying or scaling back the Liberal’s Direct Action initiatives?

 

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Climate change questions and answers

Anyone who has read Andrew Bolt, The Australian, or listened to any shock jocks such as Alan Jones recently would have been overwhelmed with the number of rabid claims that climate change is a hoax, a left-wing conspiracy theory, or that any change stopped over a decade ago. Sadly, this is the view held by our mainstream media and even more sadly, our new government. Neither seem interested in the facts.

Just over a week ago the the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) published Questions and Answers: climate change where they addressed some of the common questions raised about the changing climate and the science involved in studying it.

The media ignored it. The government ignored it. And as a result, you probably don’t know about it. After all, it was nothing more than a collection of facts: facts that contradicted what the media and government would want us to believe.

Below, I have reproduced a condensed version of the CSIRO’s discussion:

What is climate change? (natural & human-induced)

Human-induced climate change, represents a raft of new challenges for this generation and those to come, through increases in extreme weather events and other changes, such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification.

Climate change will be superimposed on natural climate variability, leading to a change in the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme events.

Climate risk profiles will be altered and adaptation will be necessary to manage these new risks. Adaptation includes new management practices, engineering solutions, improved technologies and behavioural change.

How has climate changed in the past?

In Australia, surface temperatures on the land have been recorded at many sites since the mid to late 19th century.

By 1910, Australia had a reliable network of thermometers and the data they produced have been extensively analysed by the Bureau of Meteorology and scientists at CSIRO, Australian universities and international research institutions.

This reveals that since 1910, Australia’s annual-average daily maximum temperatures have increased by 0.75°C and the overnight minima by more than 1.1°C.

Since the 1950s, each decade has been warmer than the one before. We’ve also experienced an increase in record hot days and a decrease in record cold days across the country.

Why do sea levels change?

Average global sea levels have been rising consistently since 1880 (the earliest available robust estimates) largely in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the consequent changes in the global climate.

There are two main processes behind long-term sea-level rises, which are a direct result of a warming climate.

Firstly, as the ocean has warmed the total volume of the ocean has increased through thermal expansion of water.

Secondly, water has been added to the oceans as a result of melting glaciers and ice sheets.

Sea levels began to rise in the 19th century and the rate of sea-level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the average rate during the previous two millennia.

Global-average sea levels are currently (between 1993 and 2010) rising at around 3.2mm per year, faster than during the 20th century as a whole.

How else are the oceans changing?

The heat content of the world’s oceans has increased during recent decades and accounts for more than 90 per cent of the total heat accumulated by the land, air and ocean since the 1970s.

This warming increases the volume of ocean waters and is a major contribution to sea-level rise. Ocean warming is continuing, especially in the top several hundred metres of the ocean.

Sea surface temperatures in the Australian region were very warm during 2010 and 2011, with temperatures in 2010 being the warmest on record. Sea surface temperatures averaged over the decades since 1900 have increased for every decade.

How is the composition of the atmosphere changing?

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere in 2011 was 391 parts per million (ppm) – much higher than the natural range of 170 to 300 ppm during the past 800 000 years.

Global CO2 emissions are mostly from fossil fuels (more than 85 per cent), land use change, mainly associated with tropical deforestation (less than 10 per cent), and cement production and other industrial processes (about 4 per cent).

Energy generation continues to climb and is dominated by fossil fuels – suggesting emissions will grow for some time yet.

How is climate likely to change in the future?

With greenhouse gas emissions continuing to increase, we expect the warming trend of the past century to accelerate throughout this century. We also expect changes to rainfall patterns and to the frequency of extreme weather events like cyclones and droughts.

Average temperatures across Australia are projected to rise by 0.4 to 1.8°C by 2030, compared with the climate of 1990. By 2070, warming is projected to be 1.0 to 2.5°C for a low emissions scenario, and 2.2 to 5.0°C for a high emissions scenario.

Australians will experience this warming through an increase in the number of hot days and warm nights and a decrease in cool days and cold nights.

Climate models show that there may be less rainfall in southern areas of Australia during winter and in southern and eastern areas during spring. Wet years are likely to become less frequent and dry years and droughts more frequent.

Climate models suggest that rainfall near the equator will increase globally, but it’s not clear how rainfall may change in northern Australia.

Australia will also experience climate-related changes to extreme weather events. In most areas of the country, intense rainfall events will become more extreme.

Fire-weather risk is also likely to increase and fire seasons will be longer. And although it is likely that there will be fewer tropical cyclones in the Australian region, the proportion of intense cyclones may increase.

What is extreme weather and how is it changing?

The natural climate variability that underlies all extreme weather events is now influenced and altered by the effect of human-induced warming of the climate system.

Future climate change impacts will be experienced mostly through extreme events rather than gradual changes in mean temperature or rainfall.

Heatwaves, floods, fires and southern Australian droughts are expected to become more intense and more frequent. Frosts, snow and cyclones are expected to occur less often.

Extreme events and natural disasters place a huge burden on individuals, communities, industry and the government and have an enormous impact on Australia’s economy, social fabric and environment.

What are the impacts of climate change?

Australia is expected to experience an increase in extremely high temperatures, extreme fire weather, extreme rainfall events, tropical cyclone intensity, extreme sea levels, and droughts in southern areas.

A decrease in the frequency of extremely cold temperatures is expected, along with fewer tropical cyclones.

These changes will pose significant challenges for disaster risk management, water and food security, ecosystems, forestry, buildings, transport, energy, health and tourism.

For example, many animal and plant species may decline or become extinct, water resources are expected to decline in southern Australia, agricultural zones are likely to shift, coastal erosion and inundation is expected to occur more often, energy demand is likely to increase, snow cover will decline and heat-related deaths may rise.

Is the science settled?

In climate change science, robust findings include:

  • clear evidence for global warming and sea level rise over the past century
  • changes observed in many physical and biological systems are consistent with warming
  • due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 since 1750, ocean acidity has increased
  • most of the global average warming over the past 50 years is very likely due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases
  • global greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow over the next few decades, leading to further climate change
  • due to the time scales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries even if greenhouse gas emissions were to be reduced sufficiently for atmospheric concentrations to stabilise
  • increased frequencies and intensities of some extreme weather events are very likely
  • systems and sectors at greatest risk are ecosystems, low-lying coasts, water resources in some regions, tropical agriculture, and health in areas with low adaptive capacity
  • the regions at greatest risk are the Arctic, Africa, small islands and Asian and African mega-deltas. Within other regions (even regions with high incomes) some people, areas and activities can be particularly at risk
  • unmitigated climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt
  • many impacts can be reduced, delayed or avoided by mitigation (net emission reductions). Mitigation efforts and investments over the next two to three decades will have a large impact on opportunities to achieve lower greenhouse gas stabilisation levels.

It is incredible that this information has been unreported and I would assume, largely ignored. Instead, we will continue to be inundated with claims that rabid claims that “climate change is a hoax, a left-wing conspiracy theory, or that any change stopped over a decade ago.”

It is an act of gross negligence that our media fails to accurately report the reality of climate change. It is also an act of gross negligence that our new government fails to embrace the challenges.

 

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What beat up?

Andrew Bolt is not happy.

Not only is social media attacking his pin-up boy, the newly elected Prime Minister (over a dozen justifiable issues) but there is now, in Andrew’s words:

… this beat up over Abbott’s expenses …

Andrew has mellowed. He never used to tolerate misuse of taxpayer’s money. Last year he asked Peter Slipper to justify the reason why he had billed the poor tax-payers for cab fares amounting to a few cents over $80. He aired this request publicly, devoting a whole article:

In February, I asked Peter Slipper to explain these taxi fares he charged to taxpayers.

And he also asked:

… where was Finance Minister Penny Wong in this, with so many people raising concerns over this spending of our money? What happened to the investigation by Special Minister of State Gary Gray? Who was minding the till?

Wow, I’m glad you’ve mellowed on matters pertaining to the public purse, Andrew. I’d hate to think how you’d attack Tony Abbott if you hadn’t.

 

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Independent media: the sleeping giant and the MSM’s response

Paul Sheehan’s recent attacks on the hugely popular Facebook site Tony Abbott – Worst PM in Australian History are not isolated incidents of the mainstream media (MSM) publicly airing disdain towards the social media.

Ferocious, and to some, persuasive attacks by the MSM have become rabid from the moment the independent media (the Fifth Estate) and voices in social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter) became even the slightest of threats to their diminishing integrity. And why wouldn’t their integrity be diminishing when the direction we’ve seen in the MSM leans towards, especially in the last few years, are stories that are trivial, narrow, shallow and sensationalist? And often untrue. My recent article, The facts versus Andrew Bolt offered an example of the of the fabricated sensationalism so evident in today’s media.

It was a couple of years ago that I first noticed the MSM unleash an attack on the independent blog sites. A couple that I read from the Murdoch media exhibited a sort of ‘xenophobic’ hatred. Christian Kerr, a political journalist with The Australian, savaged the blogosphere with more zeal than I’ve ever heard him attack incompetent politicians, writing that:

It’s also worth noting that the`blogosphere’ supposedly outraged is the small incestuous clique of self-identified lefties, with readerships composed mostly of themselves, who were more than happy to out other bloggers a few years ago with whom they disagreed.

That last bit, for the uninitiated, is a reference to the modern dull and doctrinaire Crikey and its very own Adrian Mole, barrister-blogger Walter Jeremy Sear, and his role assisting The Sunday Age dissect the corpse of the spectacularly snarky site The Spin Start Here that offended sensibilities for years until it reached its logical conclusion and ripped itself apart. Sear was happy to help with an outing then.

The whole thing smacks of naivety and self-righteousness.

And naivety and self-righteousness seems to define the vast majority of the Australian blogosphere. That and whining conspiracy theories.

Quite remarkably, Christian’s little dummy spit was shadowed by the editorial of another from the Murdoch empire, the Townsville Bulletin, which announced to North Queenslanders that bloggers are cowards:

When reporter James Massola “outed” an anonymous blogger in The Australian newspaper last week, he received death threats and a torrent of personal abuse.

How dare someone in the mainstream media name one of these increasingly puerile bloggers, self-appointed guardians of righteousness and all that is wrong about society and, in particular, newspapers.

Grogs Gamut was named as a Canberra public servant and the reaction from his mates was as predictable as it was boring.

Those who hide under the veil of anonymity, taking cheap shots to satisfy their trendy social agenda, don’t like it when they are thrust into the real world.

The great thing about newspapers is that, love us or hate us, we’re the voice of the people. We represent the community, their views, their aspirations and their hopes. We champion North Queensland’s wins and we commiserate during our losses.

Oh how high and mighty they are, being the acclaimed “voice of the people”. And true to from, jumping in on the act the aforementioned Andrew Bolt screamed that the outed blogger, Greg Jericho, be sacked from his usual job. Indeed, let’s punish this new media.

There is no doubt that all forms of dialogue in the social and independent media have profoundly influenced the nature of modern communication and obviously this doesn’t sit well with the traditional media. The above references are indicative of their opinion that the new media produces public discussion that falls well below their standards. I, however, disagree. News stories these days are nothing more than opinion pieces to which nobody is held to account.

New media is now holding them to account and this sits very uneasily with them.

In a few short years the new media, blogging in particular, has become a global phenomenon and it has reshaped our view of journalism. It is in the political sphere, that the impact of blogging is being nurtured.

In an essay titled The Influence of Political Blog Sites on Democratic Participation, ShariVari wrote that:

A computer-mediated environment may make it easier for citizens to express their feelings about political candidates and allow them to speak more candidly than if they were in a face-to-face situation. The diversity of the internet gives citizens access to a wide variety of opinions and information that they may not have access to otherwise, and this may play a role in changing or shaping an individual’s political views. After disregarding any blog sites that have a corporate financial objective or are engaging in political agenda-setting, political blog site users can begin to discuss their personal view points with peers.

I find this essay to be rather heartening. As a blogger and a social media user who has lost all faith in the MSM it was good to know that we can indeed have an impact, albeit small at this stage.

ShariVari concludes that:

All of the research shows that increased opportunities for participation can only encourage democracy . . . This research means that citizens are increasingly turning to and trusting the Internet for accurate information, using it as a platform for participatory democracy, and becoming more knowledgeable about political information in the process. A Spiral of Silence is less likely to exist where citizens have only each others’ opinions to evaluate in terms of their own civic participation and lack status cues such as gender, race, and socio-economic status. Blog sites definitely are increasing the ways in which citizens can participate in their democracy.

The above article, although American and a couple of years old, aptly describes how independent media is now evolving in Australia.

Independent media are better suited to provide the diversity which is often ignored by traditional journalists. Both independent and social media advances the opportunity to expose doctored or omitted facts from mainstream media and point out the bias by particular reporters who do not provide such opportunity for his/her readership to give voice to alternate opinions.

Independent media also encourages contributors and readers to think objectively and ask the probing questions that might often be avoided by the MSM, particularly if they are working to a different (or hidden) agenda. Further, social media gives people the opportunity to analyse and disseminate the news and opinions thrown at them from the established media and as a consequence social media is awash with a more objective and factual analysis. Where, for example, would you find corrections to false or misleading statements from the current government exposed? Not the MSM. Not the MSM as they operate under a different agenda.

But if the MSM was objective, impartial and committed to providing a quality service then there may not be the thousands of social media groups the MSM are now taking a disliking to.

Had we a balanced and analytical media, there would be blogs and social media groups, certainly, but at the extremes of the political spectrum although their popularity would have been limited to those that simply agreed with them. Now we have people turning to the new media because they know they cannot expect the truth out of the old media. If the MSM did their job better they wouldn’t need to be so capriciously attacking social media because, quite simply, they wouldn’t be competition.

Sheehan’s recent attack, as mentioned earlier, is not an isolated incident. David Donovan of Independent Australia has also been targeted. David innocently tweeted:

Forgive if I recall incorrectly, but didn’t Abbott promise to spend his first week as PM in an Indigenous community?

It was a fair question. If it wasn’t bad enough that this pre-election commitment was washed aside by the MSM, then the insulting attack on David by Samantha Maiden, the national political editor of News Corporation’s Sydney Sunday masthead, the Sunday Telegraph was. The attack was personal. I encourage you to read David’s account of it.

What on earth is wrong with the MSM? Not only is the credibility of their professionalism crumbling but they attack the independent media for introducing the credibility that they themselves lack. Independent media are asking the questions that should be asked. Independent media are exposing the falsehoods that should be exposed. And in doing so, incur the wrath from the MSM who people, traditionally, have looked to for balanced news and opinion.

Margo Kingston – a former journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and now a leading figure in social media – summed it up rather succinctly in an interview with The AIMN:

It’s scary that the media are not doing their job. Many journalist friends have expressed the same concerns; they don’t feel as though they are traditional journalists anymore, they are simply writing what the powerful want them to write . . . And there are journalists in the traditional media who secretly admit that the new, independent media is the way of the future.

Some, however, are obviously frightened of it. They can persist with their attacks, but like their news stories they are shallow as rossleigh proved when he spoke to the creator of the Tony Abbott – Worst PM in Australian History Facebook group; the one that Paul Sheehan fabricated stories about. It was a glaring example of story being made up to attack the independent media. It’s not a good move. The Fifth Estate is a sleeping giant. It’s starting to wake up and my advice to the old media is not to provoke it. It is going to consume you. We are no longer passive observers. Margo adds:

We need to build a bridge between the new media and journalists who see the corruption within the mainstream media. We need to collaborate and work together. We can do this by luring traditional journalists into the new media and free them of their shackles. If we do this, one day we in the new media will look back and be grateful for the decisions we make today.

That would be ideal, however, even if ‘traditional’ journalists prefer to ignore the freshness that the new media can offer, there has already been an emergence of ‘new’ journalists in the Fifth Estate to fill the void.

 

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The facts versus Andrew Bolt

I don’t know how many times I’ve read Andrew Bolt’s claims that global warming stopped 16 years ago. Announcing the claim, on one of many occasions he recently asked:

How many more years of no warming before global warmists admit their theory is broken?

New data released two weeks ago shows the pause in global warming has now lasted 16 years.

Now, where did he get that information from? Maybe he read it in a newspaper. Maybe this one:

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released … and here is the chart to prove it.

Note the dates. Bolt’s article was published 18 October last year, the British article on 13 October: five days earlier. In between, on 16 October the MET Office* disputed the claim:

Met Office denies claims that latest data shows global warming slowdown.

Reports suggesting that global warming stopped 16 years ago are “misleading”, the Met Office said yesterday.

Why do Andrew Bolt and many right-wing commentators prefer to rely on misleading media reports to push their ideologies? I’m of the opinion that there is no crime in denying climate change – you can believe in it or not – but if you are going to publicly argue for or against it, it would be a good idea, for a start, to know what you’re talking about.

In my opinion, Andrew Bolt doesn’t. But it hardly deters him from attacking climate change believers with his poisoned pen whilst continuing to maintain his discredited argument that global warming had ceased. He was overjoyed at the sacking of Tim Flannery and the Climate Commission, writing:

New Environment Minster Greg Hunt made only one mistake yesterday when sacking Tim Flannery and junking his Climate Commission.

Hunt actually thanked the alarmist for his work.

Thank Flannery? Hunt should instead have asked Flannery how much of his $180,000 a year salary he’d refund after getting so many predictions wrong.

He should have told Flannery it was disgraceful to even now claim global warming was increasing, when atmospheric temperatures have failed to rise for 15 years.

No sooner had the ink dried on his article when world renown environmentalist David Suzuki appeared on the ABC’s Q&A and Bolt was at it again:

Oh. My. God.

David Suzuki on the very first question is revealed as a complete know-nothing. His questioner tells him that the main climate data sets show no real warming for some 15 years.

Suzuki asks for the references, which he should have known if he knew anything of the science.

His questioner then lists them: UAH, RSS, HadCrut and GISS – four of the most basic measurement systems of global temperature.

Suzuki asks what they are.

Anyone interested in global warming should know right there that Suzuki has absolutely no understanding of what he is talking about.

In my opinion he is a phoney.

Here, for Suzuki’s information, is the GISS measurement.

Bolt’s rant was backed up with a number of charts he had obtained from the link he provided to climate4you.com. I took a look at the site. It was overflowing with charts contradicting Bolt’s argument. His claim that “atmospheric temperatures have failed to rise for 15 years” is rebuked on the very site he referred to. Here’s a typical chart showing global monthly average surface air temperature since 1979, according to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), USA:

 

 

It doesn’t look like Andrew is good at sourcing information, does it?

I think I can do a better job than him. Here’s something from the Los Angeles Times for a start: 2012 was among the 10 hottest years on record globally. Here’s what it says:

The average global temperature in 2012 was among the 10 hottest since official record keeping began in 1880, with most of the world — from North America to far northeastern Asia — experiencing higher-than-usual temperatures, according to related reports issued Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Speaking of NASA, they have this on their website:

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner.

Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gasses produced by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.

According to the IPCC, the extent of climate change effects on individual regions will vary over time and with the ability of different societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change.

The IPCC predicts that increases in global mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones in others. Net annual costs will increase over time as global temperatures increase.

“Taken as a whole,” the IPCC states, “the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.”

Below are some of the regional impacts of global change forecast by the IPCC:

  • North America: Decreasing snowpack in the western mountains; 5-20 percent increase in yields of rain-fed agriculture in some regions; increased frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves in cities that currently experience them.
  • Latin America: Gradual replacement of tropical forest by savannah in eastern Amazonia; risk of significant biodiversity loss through species extinction in many tropical areas; significant changes in water availability for human consumption, agriculture and energy generation.
  • Europe: Increased risk of inland flash floods; more frequent coastal flooding and increased erosion from storms and sea level rise; glacial retreat in mountainous areas; reduced snow cover and winter tourism; extensive species losses; reductions of crop productivity in southern Europe.
  • Africa: By 2020, between 75 and 250 million people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress; yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent in some regions by 2020; agricultural production, including access to food, may be severely compromised.
  • Asia: Freshwater availability projected to decrease in Central, South, East and Southeast Asia by the 2050s; coastal areas will be at risk due to increased flooding; death rate from disease associated with floods and droughts expected to rise in some regions.

Not a bad source to reference, in my opinion. Far better than referencing a journalist whose claim was almost immediately shot down in flames. And while I’m finding all these facts here’s one from our very own Bureau of Meteorology who arguably, know a little bit more about our weather than Andrew Bolt. From their article Australia’s warmest 12-month period on record, again: Australia’s warmest September on record comes these Bolt defying revelations:

Australia’s record for warmest 12-month period has been broken for a second consecutive month. This continues a remarkable sequence of warmer-than-average months for Australia since June 2012.

September 2013 was easily Australia’s warmest September on record. The national average temperature for September was +2.75 °C above the long-term (1961–1990) average, which also sets a record for Australia’s largest positive anomaly for any monthly mean temperature. The previous record of +2.66 °C was set in April 2005.

The mean temperature for Australia, averaged over the 12 months from October 2012 to September 2013, was 1.25 °C above the long-term average. This was also 0.17 °C warmer than any 12-month period prior to 2013.

The previous record, set over September 2012 to August 2013, was +1.11 °C above the long-term average, and the record preceding the current warm spell was +1.08 °C, set between February 2005 and January 2006.

Temperatures for the calendar year to date (January to September) have also been the warmest on record, at 1.31 °C above the long-term average, well above the figure set for January to September 2005 (+1.07 °C). 2005 currently holds the record for Australia’s warmest calendar year.

The past 18 months have been characterised by widespread heat across Australia. The mean temperature has been above average over the entire continent.

In the past 12-month period a large number of mean temperature records have fallen across Australia including:

  • Australia’s warmest month on record (January)
  • Australia’s warmest September on record
  • Australia’s largest positive monthly anomaly on record (September)
  • Australia’s warmest summer on record (December 2012 to February 2013)
  • Australia’s warmest January to September period on record
  • Australia’s warmest 12-month period on record (broken twice, for the periods ending August and September)
  • Indeed, Australia’s warmest period on record for all periods 1 to 18 months long ending September 2013

Two significant daily maximum temperature records were also set this year:

  • Australia’s hottest summer day on record (7 January)
  • Australia’s warmest winter day on record (31 August)

The periods inclusive of September 2013 have also resulted in numerous State and Territory mean temperature records including:

  • Warmest September on record for South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory
  • Largest positive monthly anomaly on record for South Australia and Queensland (September)
  • The warmest January to September period on record for South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and the Northern Territory, and also for Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide
  • The warmest 12-month period on record for South Australia, the Northern Territory, and southern Australia

In addition to these records, and those set during the heat events of January and autumn, many individual stations have set records for early season heat or September record highs.

Generally above-average temperatures have persisted with few breaks since September 2012. The period has been characterised by long periods of warmer-than-average days and a distinct lack of cold weather. Nights have also been warmer than average, but less so than daytime temperatures.

Every calendar month since September 2012 has recorded temperatures at least 0.5 °C above average, with eight of those thirteen months topping 1.0 °C above average including January, April, May, July, August and September of 2013. Widespread record warmth has also been recorded in the oceans around Australia.

I am sure that none of this will be of interest to Andrew Bolt. I’m also sure we’ll keep hearing that global warming stopped 16 years ago despite evidence to the contrary. But we have one thing to be thankful for Andrew Bolt for whilst he keeps writing articles denying credible evidence and supporting discredited sources, and continuing to promote a raft of fallacies which add a sweetener to his bitter hatred, this can only be good for the growth of independent media. When people stack the truth up against Andrew Bolt … they’ll see that the truth wins.

*The Met Office is the UK’s National Weather Service.

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Why Labor Lost

labor

Firstly:

The truth of the matter is that my Party is at times its own worst enemy. For the six years Labor has been in power it governed well in spite of the enormous inconvenience of minority governance. This is indisputable when you look closely at its economic record, the legalisation passed and reformist policy from within a minority framework.

Its problems though did not originate from everyday governance. In this sense, it has been no better or worse than any other government.

Rather its problems stemmed from personality conflict and the pursuit of power. Politics by its very nature is confrontational and uneasy with those with ego who pursue power for power’s sake or those who think they have some sort of ownership of righteousness.

Labor had two formidable intellects in Rudd and Gillard. In fact, combined they would total much of the opposition front bench’s intellectual capacity.

It is one thing to replace a leader but a different thing when the leader happens to be the Prime Minister who the voters perceive they have elected.

Hindsight is, of course, a wonderful thing so it is easy to say that Rudd should never have been replaced. That Rudd undermined the 2007 election campaign and continued to undermine Julia Gillard for most of her tenure. He never showed the grace in defeat that Turnbull displayed.

So we had two leaders of sagacious intellect. One a ubiquitous narcissist, who couldn’t listen and who couldn’t delegate. On the other hand, we had a woman of immense policy capacity (and history will judge her that way) but would be hard pressed to sell a Collingwood Guernsey to a rabid supporter.

Minority government has enormous, day to day difficulties without having one’s leadership frequently undermined. And we can speculate about a myriad of other possibilities but it won’t change the fact that ego destroyed any chance Labor had of winning the 2013 election.

This is the main reason why Labor lost. Not because they didn’t govern well. As Tanya Plibersek said 10/10 for governance and 0/10 for behaviour.

But because life is about perceptions, not what is, but what it appears to be. We painted a picture of irrational decision making, of dysfunction and murderous disloyalty. Rightly or wrongly that is the perception. In other words, we committed political suicide.

Secondly:

There are of course other factors that contributed to our downfall.

Despite the growing influence of the Fifth Estate the Main Stream Media still packs an enormous punch. In advertising, the success of one’s spend is measured by the resulting sales. The media can measure its influence in the Polls.

Labor was the victim of the most concerted gutter attack ever insinuated upon an Australian political party, from all sections of the media, although one, in particular, News Corp, has gone well beyond the realm of impartiality.

Labor was drowned in an avalanche of lies, repugnant bile, half-truths and omissions. The media lost its objectivity and news reporting. It became so biased that it no longer pretended to disguise it.

The MSM has forsaken truth, justice and respectability in its pursuit of the protection of privilege. They printed and told lies with such reprehensible consistency that a gullible and politically undiscerning Australian public never really challenged it.

As a famous businessman once said.’’ I spend a lot of money on advertising and I know for certain that half of it works’’ Clive Palmer has won a seat because he had the money to promote himself. He proved the power of persuasion with money.

The Fifth Estate (including me) attempted to counter these nefarious attacks but in my view, we are three years away from reaching full potential.

Having said that I plead some degree of ignorance, and I must say, I am absolutely astounded at how many people participate in social media and the voice it gives them.

However, in three years’ time, its ability to influence the younger generation will have risen exponentially. Added to that will be a declining older generation.

Thirdly:

Tony Abbott successfully adopted an American Republican-style shock and awe approach in his pursuit of power. Mainstream media hailed him the most effective opposition leader in Australian political history.

This was solely based on his parties standing in the polls and said nothing about the manner in which he lied and distorted facts and science to bring about this standing.

Perhaps they should rethink the criteria they use.

On a daily basis and in the parliament he sought to abuse, disrupt proceedings and tell untruths that normal men would not.

His gutter style negativity set a new benchmark for the behaviour of future opposition leaders. Luckily though, he may be the only one of his characterless ilk, and future opposition leaders may be more affable.

However, the consistency of his negativity had an effect on an electorate in a state of comatose. From the time the election date was announced he portrayed himself as a different person. An indifferent public was fooled by this chameleon disguise. He was and still is by his own admission a liar.

David Marr used these words, to sum up, the character of this would be Prime Minister.

“An aggressive populist with a sharp tongue; a political animal with lots of charm; a born protégé with ambitions to lead; a big brain but no intellectual; a bluff guy who proved a more than competent minister; a politician with little idea of what he might do if he ever got to the top; and a man profoundly wary of change.”

“He’s a worker. No doubt about that. But the point of it all is power. Without power, it’s been a waste of time.”

How one appraisers the reasons for Labor’s loss might differ from individual to individual and there will undoubtedly be many thousands of words written on the subject. For me, it can be rather succinctly summed up in a sentence or two.

A political party, union of workers, sporting team or board of directors is only as good as the total sum of its parts. A good leader facilitates, emboldens and inspires the team, but a leader with self-interested ambition can destroy it all.

This is the first in a series. Next week: Labor reform.

 

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Politics Is Boring!

Or as the Buddha said, “You want to find Nirvana? Why you following me for, I already told you the path was long – do you think it was just a matter of walking in my footsteps and wearing silly clothes?

It shouldn’t be about winning.

That’s the thing.

Andrew Bolt was all over his court case – he had a front page on his restrictions on freedom of speech, but he was strangely silent on Gina Rinehart trying to make a couple of journalists reveal their sources, but that was because his only concern wasn’t with the PRINCIPLE or freedom of speech. It was about WHOSE speech was being silenced.

“The man with the megaphone supports freedom of speech until someone else gets one – then he supports the regulation of megaphones and laws on noise pollution.”

We know it’s about winning, so we put our principles to one side, we play the game, we do what’s necessary.

If we were better people Tony Abbott wouldn’t just be as laughable as the One Nation Candidate who thought Islam was a country, he’d be unnecessary!

Let’s try to be better people.

Otherwise politics is even more boring.

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Apparently Australia is full

“We can’t take all these illegals, Australia is full!”

“Full of racists, you mean!”

OK, we know where this dialogue is going. The words “Nazi” and “bleeding heart” will be tossed around, but rarely do people ever go beyond abuse once a dialogue starts this way. Personally, I try to focus on the issues rather than simply resorting to abuse like those fascist bastard right wingers do! (See, Andrew Bolt, two can play at that game.) But every now and then it’s fun to bait the angry.

Of course, a lot of things are fun. It doesn’t make them right. We all need to demand higher standards of ourselves – except for Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt who always rise to the highest standards. (No-one can accuse me of lacking balance!)

And so, I write this in a state of some confusion. I’m no Julia Gillard groupie, but I admire her courage and toughness, and I do think that she’s been harshly treated. And I suspect that if I’d gone to school with Rudd, I’d have eventually been so annoyed by him that I’d have rubbed his face in the dirt, until someone pointed out that I’m actually a pacifist, and that I actually agreed with the first statement he made.

Having been on social media, read the paper, listened to the radio, watched TV and, generally, heard the forces of Abbott gloat as though they’d actually won the last election, I must confess: I like watching Rudd restore some sense of reality to these wanna-be “Tea Party” losers. They may still lose! Ha!

Of course, the whole asylum seeker issue disturbs me greatly. So let’s start with the things we agree about.

  1. It would be better if people didn’t travel to Australia on unsafe boats.

I’m pretty sure that no-one will disagree with that. The “Stop the Boats Nazis” and “The Bleeding Hearts” and everyone in between.

The question is what is our second point of agreement. Can we agree that a strong deterrent will work? Well, if the strong possibility of drowning isn’t a strong deterrent, what is? So I doubt that will be the second point of agreement. From this point of agreement we spread off in different directions. Some complain that Rudd is no better than Howard. Others gloat that he’s removed an electoral positive from Tony. Yet others say that he’s admitted the Liberals were right. And finally, we have Abbott’s: It’s a good policy, but we think he’ll muck it up, because that’s all we’ve got now.

Will there be number two?

I’d like to think that we could agree to find the best solution possible. That people will be treated humanely, that we won’t resort to slogans. And that something better is possible, providing we think about it.

I mean, actually think, and not resort to emotive language, whichever side you’re on!

  1. _________________________

Good luck and good wishes.

 

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