Resisting Climate Hysteria

[basilio]

I thought this piece from The Guardian was pretty much on the money. Certainly resonated with me.

Why we’re all everyday climate change deniers
Alice Bell

Global warming is scary and abstract. No wonder we struggle to face up to it – and let politicians and industry off the hook

Contact author
@alicebell

Tuesday 6 December 2016 06.00 GMT

After Donald Trump won last month’s US presidential election, hot takes speedily declared it game over for the planet. But as Al Gore said at the weekend, “despair is just another form of denial”. About this, he is entirely right. Now is not the time to cry into your graphs of melting Arctic sea ice. That only helps the people who profit from delay on climate change.

Because climate denial isn’t just something other people do – bad people, sad people, stupid people. It’s not just a niche hobby practised by the president-elect and weirder bits of the internet. It’s mainstream.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/06/trump-world-climate-change-denial

 

[noco]

I thought this piece from The Guardian was pretty much on the money. Certainly resonated with me.



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/06/trump-world-climate-change-denial

Al Gore????...The Guardian????......The ones who exaggerate and distort the truth....The one's who self confess to false information..OMG..????????......You should have included Tim Flannery to make it sound better.

There are some naive people in this world.

 

[noco]

Well what do you know?....The waters in the Coral Sea are actually cooling.....Means no La-Nina = no rain for Townsville......And while Labor sits on its hands with more water storage we enter into a crisis.

I hope Tim Flannery does not visit Townsville otherwise he might con the Labor saturated city with another desalinization plant...That is the last thing we need...we have been screaming out for another dam for 2 decades and the Labor Party does nothing except talk...We now have a useless Federal MP, 3 state useless MPs and an all Labor local council.......Is it any wonder nothing gets done.

The Labor council are pumping water from the Burdiken at $27,000 per day......How many more days?...At that rate it will cost $1,620,000 over the next 60 days and maybe another 60 days after that.....Who knows.

No doubt, we, the stupid rate payers will have it reflected on our next rates bill.

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.a...h/news-story/b4531ba31785b5b387a6ced961ee9103

 

[noco]

I trust this link will put to rest all the propaganda and lies spread about the Adani coal mine by the looney left Greens.
The state Labor Party government is on board and I suggest the Greens do the same and create jobs as they are always spruiking.

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.a...e/news-story/aa3fd0d8f926619e4751a38d98bef022

Myth buster: Ten things you need to know about the Adani mine
KIERAN ROONEY, Townsville Bulletin
December 6, 2016 1:37pm
Subscriber only

THERE has been a lot of speculation about exactly what the Adani Carmichael coal mine will mean for North Queensland. Here, we bust some common myths and explain the facts.

ISSUE 1

The Federal Government is going to pay for half of Adani’s $2 billion rail line despite assurances it would not fund the project.

FACT

An application involved the proposed rail line to Abbot point has been passed on to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. The $5 billion fund is designed to develop Northern Australia by providing loans to projects that meet strict economic tests. Any money provided to kickstart the project would need to be financially viable Adani would be required to pay it back.

Source: NAIF website

ISSUE 2

Shipping the coal from North Queensland will put the reef in danger from spills and other forms of damage.

FACT

Every ship travelling through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority area is under strict guidelines and must be operated by highly experienced Australian pilot. This was introduced in 1991 to significantly reduce the risk of collisions and groundings. This will be the same for any ships travelling on their way to India.

Source: GBRMPA
Tug boat heads out to sea to retrieve a the next coal tanker to be filled at the Abbot Point terminal. (File image)

ISSUE 3

The government has bent over backwards and removed regulations to get this project over the line.

FACT

Adani has spent the past six years working to get the Carmichael mine project underway by meeting government regulations. It has already spent $3.3 billion to get to this stage and $100 million in court costs to date. Since the start of 2015, 22 key Commonwealth, State and local government approvals have been granted for Adani’s mine, rail and port facilities and there have been 29 key milestones reached.

Source. State Government.

ISSUE 4

Adani cannot be trusted with their environmental responsibilities

FACT

There are about 200 rigorous environmental control imposed on this project as part of its approval process. Failure to meet these would mean immediate consequences from the State or Federal Government that would jeopardise the project.

Source: State Development Minister Dr Anthony Lynham
Rigorous environmental restrictions are in place to protect the Great Barrier Reef. (File picture)

ISSUE 5

Jobs will not be created for Australians or regional Queenslanders.

FACT

Adani has given a written pledge that it will not use 457 Visa holders for any construction or operational jobs.

Source: Adani Group

ISSUE 6

The mine will drain from the water table damaging the environment and farmers.

FACT.

Adani is in currently applying for a water licence that will directly address this issue. Similar objections were raised in the Land Court and were cleared. Adani claim that not one directly affected land holder raised any objection in the Land Court.

Source: State Government/ Adani/ Land Court
Job creation. (File picture)

ISSUE 7

The economic case does not stack up for the mine

FACT

Adani is an infrastructure company, owning and running the ports, power plants and even the wires which provide power to homes. Given the company knows its own demand requirements the Australian mine will fit into this vertical structure from the ground to the grid. It has also invested $3.3 billion into the project and fought multiple legal battles instead of pursuing similar projects in other countries.

Source: Adani

ISSUE 8

Dredged spoil will damage the Great Barrier Reef

FACT

Adani has reached an agreement with the State Government that spoil will be placed onshore in an area approved by environmental authorities. The company owns and operates the Abbot Point bulk coal loading facility and wants to expand this with a once-off dredging operation because the port is not affected by river run off and silting. This has been approved on stringent conditions the spoil will not touch the reef.

Source: State Government

 

[SirRumpole]

Al Gore????...The Guardian????......The ones who exaggerate and distort the truth....The one's who self confess to false information..OMG..????????......You should have included Tim Flannery to make it sound better.

There are some naive people in this world.

There are also people who constantly play the man instead of the ball because they don't know the subject and find it easier to denigrate than do research, and they mindlessly swallow and regurgitate the tinfoil hat conspiracy nonsense.

 

[Tisme]

There are also people who constantly play the man instead of the ball because they don't have the knowledge and skillset to kick goals .

Modified version

 

[SirRumpole]

Modified version

Or if they do, they are own goals.

 

[noco]

There are also people who constantly play the man instead of the ball because they don't know the subject and find it easier to denigrate than do research, and they mindlessly swallow and regurgitate the tinfoil hat conspiracy nonsense.

That is the pot calling the kettle black because you and Tisme are past masters at playing the man......Ridicule your opponents in the hope of silencing them....Plenty of examples from the past.

 

[Tisme]

That is the pot calling the kettle black because you and Tisme are past masters at playing the man......Ridicule your opponents in the hope of silencing them....Plenty of examples from the past.

TROLL Alert !!!!!

 

[noco]

TROLL Alert !!!!!

Yes and that is the type of juvenile answer I expected...Time to grow up.

 

[Tisme]

Yes and that is the type of juvenile answer I expected...Time to grow up.

and then what? Look forward to senility and trolling the internet forums with a grab bag of broken records?

 

[luutzu]

and then what? Look forward to senility and trolling the internet forums with a grab bag of broken records?

...or, put those MacGuyver electrical engineering skills to work on using waves and tides to electrify the home; then dig them holes to go geothermal.

Or troll noco.

 

[noco]

Professor Peter Ridd of JCU Townsville has studied the Great Barrier Reef for 30 + years.......I have met Peter on two occasions as President of the AWWA and found both he and the late Professor Bob Carter to be of good character who were both very open minded about the Reef.

Peter was outspoken and critical of some of the lies and propaganda being spruiked about the reef and silenced with the threat of the sack by the JCU......HOW DARE THEY.?

I ask all viewers to read the link from beginning to end.

NB. Much of the reef that has recently been affected is north of Cooktown where there is no coal mines or agricultural run off from sugar cane farms.

Naomi Klein visited the reef, did a video of the bad areas but did not video the good areas.....There was no indication of which part of the 2,500 km long reef she visited.

More lies and propaganda to make out the reef is totally destroyed......These people could not lie straight in bed.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/hig...y/news-story/c7aa0e0ac1c1dec1b065273d2e968f6d


When marine scientist Peter Ridd suspected something was wrong with photographs being used to highlight the rapid decline of the Great Barrier Reef, he did what good scientists are supposed to do: he sent a team to check the facts.

After attempting to blow the whistle on what he found — healthy corals — Professor Ridd was censured by James Cook University and threatened with the sack. After a formal investigation, Professor Ridd — a renowned campaigner for quality assurance over coral research from JCU’s Marine Geophysics Laboratory — was found guilty of “failing to act in a collegial way and in the academic spirit of the institution”.

His crime was to encourage questioning of two of the nation’s leading reef institutions, the Centre of Excellence for Coral Studies and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, on whether they knew that photographs they had published and claimed to show long-term collapse of reef health could be misleading and wrong.

“These photographs are a big deal as they are plastered right across the internet and used very widely to claim damage,” Professor Ridd told The Weekend Australian.

The photographs were taken near Stone Island off Bowen. A photograph taken in the late 19th century shows healthy coral. An accompanying picture supposedly of the same reef in 1994 is *devoid of coral. When the before-and-after shots were used by GBRMPA in its 2014 report, the authority said: “Historical photographs of inshore coral reefs have been especially powerful in illustrating changes over time, and that the change illustrated is typical of many inshore reefs.”

Professor Ridd said it was only possible to guess within a kilometre or two where the original photograph was taken and it would not be unusual to find great coral in one spot and nothing a kilometre away, as his researchers had done. Nor was it possible to say what had killed the coral in the 1994 picture.

“In fact, there are literally hundreds of square kilometres of dead reef-flat on the Great Barrier Reef which was killed due to the slow sea-level fall of about a meter that has occurred over the last 5000 years,” he said. “My point is not that they have probably got this completely wrong but rather what are the quality assurance measures they take to try to ensure they are not telling a misleading story?”

A GBRMPA spokesman said last night “the historical photos serve to demonstrate the vulnerability of nearshore coral reefs, rather than a specific cause for their decline.

“Ongoing monitoring shows coral growth in some locations, however this doesn’t detract from the bigger picture, which shows shallow inshore areas of the Great Barrier Reef south of Port Douglas have clearly degraded over a period of decades.” Centre of Excellence for Coral Studies chairman Terry Hughes did not respond to questions from The Weekend Australian.

Professor Ridd was disciplined for breaching principle 1 of JCU’s code of conduct by “not displaying responsibility in respecting the reputations of other colleagues”. He has been told that if he does it again he may be found guilty of *serious misconduct.

A JCU spokesman said it was university policy not to comment on individual staff, but that the university’s marine science was subject to “the same quality assurance processes that govern the conduct of, and delivery of, *science internationally”.

This is the crux of the issue for Professor Ridd: “I feel as though I am the whistleblower.”

His potential downfall is the *result of a long campaign for better quality assurance standards for ocean and reef research, which has come under fire globally for exaggerating bad news and ignoring the good. Reef politics is a hot topic in the wake of widescale bleaching of corals on the Great Barrier Reef as part of what US agencies have called the world’s third mass-bleaching event.

James Cook University's Professor Peter Ridd on Townsville's Strand. Picture: Cameron Laird
James Cook University's Professor Peter Ridd on Townsville's Strand. Picture: Cameron Laird

About a quarter of the Great Barrier Reef has died and could take years to rebuild. The damage is concentrated in the northern section off Cape York. The scientific response to the bleaching has exposed a rift *between GBRMPA and the JCU’s Coral Bleaching Taskforce led by Professor Hughes over how bleaching data should be treated and presented to the public. Conservation groups have run hard on the issue, with graphic *images of dying corals. All sides of politics have responded with *increased funding to reduce sediment flow and to combat crown of thorns starfish.

University of Western Australia marine biologist Carlos Duarte argued in BioScience last year that bias contributed to “perpetuating the perception of ocean calamities in the absence of robust evidence”.

A paper published this year claimed scientific journals had exaggerated bad news on ocean acidification and played down the doubts. Former GBRMPA chairman Ian McPhail accused activists of “exaggerating the impact of coral bleaching for political and financial gain”. Dr McPhail told The Weekend Australian it “seems that there is a group of researchers who begin with the premise that all is disaster”.
Concerns about quality assurance in science are not confined to the reef. Drug-makers generated headlines when they were unable to replicate the results of landmark studies in the basic science of cancer. Professor Ridd poses the question: “Is the situation in marine science likely to be worse than in medicine and pharmaceuticals, psychology, education? Do we have a decent system of replication and checking of results?

“Is there a chance that many marine scientists are partially driven by ideology? Is there a chance that peer review among this group is self-selecting of the dominant idea? Is there a robust debate without intimidation?”

Professor Ridd wants an independent agency to check the science before governments commit to spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

There is no doubt the current bleaching is a serious event but there are also many questions still to be answered. The consensus position of reef experts is that bleaching events will get worse as ocean temperatures continue to rise because of climate change.

An interview with Peter Ridd on the false actuations of the Great Barrier Reef bleaching.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/a...s/news-story/da65fb7bac61af3677e171dafe072a1f

 

[trainspotter]

Global warming? What global warming? House has been there for 86 years.

 

[Knobby22]

Did he buy boats too big to fit in his garage?

 

[wayneL]

Great article from Roy Spencer http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/12...p-end-the-bias-in-government-funded-research/

SNIP: So, you thought government-funded science is objective?

Oh, that’s adorable.

Since politicians are ultimately in charge of deciding how much money agencies receive to dole out to the research community, it is inevitable that politics and desired outcomes influence the science the public pays for

SNIP:The problem with attribution in global warming research is that any source of warming will look about the same, whether human-caused or nature-caused. The land will warm faster than the ocean. The high northern latitudes will warm the most. Winters will warm somewhat more than summers. The warming will be somewhat greater at 10 km altitude than at the surface. It doesn’t matter what caused the warming. So, it’s easy for the experts to say the warming is “consistent with” human causation, without mentioning it could also be “consistent with” natural causation.

SNIP: In my opinion, we are an over-regulated society. Over-regulation not only destroys prosperity and jobs, it ends up killing people. And political pressures in government to perform scientific research that favors biased policy outcomes is part of the problem.

Science is being misused, prostituted if you wish.

 

[explod]

So its being suggested that Government funded research has intoned a bias towards man made causes of climate change. You have to be joking. Of course early in the piece from the time of Thatcher to some degree yes but it is pretty well common knowledge that the petro/coal lobbies soon got behind Governments and turned that screw around.

On causation there are many shades of grey at our public level/view. However we have hit the tipping point in overpopulation, economic expansionism and the climate instability. Peoples are being swept, washed, frozen and burnt away by the day now. Any possible contributions that can be stopped is a good thing if it MAY help. Coal and oil burning is one as the alternatives are advancing through good science at an amazing rate, creating new employment frontiers and cheaper more efficient power.

Note I stated "MAY", we have to err on the side of caution for our future generations. If it is later shown that coal and oil is not the factor then our future generation will thank us for leaving some resources for their benefit. Not like the dreadful deal a couple of years back where we sold most of our future gas to China for less than five cents a litre.

 

[wayneL]

So its being suggested that Government funded research has intoned a bias towards man made causes of climate change. You have to be joking.

No joke mate. If you went to the government with a hypothesis that varies from the mainstream Climate establishment view, you won't get funding... fact.

They won't even support that essential part of scientific process, falsification.

It happens in all fields now, especially the soft sciences, prostitutes to a higher mercantile or political imperative. Read up.

 

[Tisme]

Does anyone remember the hysteria about Los Angeles and smog? Ralph Nader perhaps?

Just saying that sometimes leadership and galvanised people power can change the world for better, while others sit on their hands and chant bah humbug:

 

[Logique]

An interview with Peter Ridd on the false actuations of the Great Barrier Reef bleaching.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/a...s/news-story/da65fb7bac61af3677e171dafe072a1f

Interesting that the reef of today is only 8,000 years old, and grew not despite, but because of a gradually warming climate and rising sea levels since the last Ice Age.

http://greatadventures.com.au/great-barrier-reef-information/
...The reefs we see today have grown on top of older reef platforms during the last 8000 years – since the last Ice Age.