Australian Parliamentarian, and Sceptic, Banned Prevented from Tabling Climate Data
Posted by jennifer, December 2nd, 2008 - under News, Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change, Drought, Murray River, Water
DR Dennis Jensen BAppSc (RMIT), MSc (Melb), PhD (Monash) is the only member of the Australian Parliament with any training in science a PhD in a science discipline.
[As correctly pointed out in the comments following this posting, my brother Jim Turnour, also a member of the Federal Parliament, has a Batchelor of Agricultural Science. Other members with science and science-related degrees are listed in a comment in the following thread.]
Yesterday Dr Jensen suggested in the Australian Parliament that many of the current problems facing the Murray Darling Basin are the result of low runoff as a consequence of changed land management practices (including more plantations in the top of catchments), catchment-wide drainage management plans (place in the 1980s and 1990s to lower water tables) and more efficient water use (resulting in less leakage).
He explained that it was wrong to blame climate change for the low levels in the dams, because there had been no long term decline in rainfall in the Basin.
Dr Jensen also explained that many of the climate models used to predict regional rainfall, including the CSIRO models (relied upon by Ross Garnaut in his report on climate change to the Australian government), are unreliable and unduly pessimistic.
When Dr Jensen asked to table supporting information in the Parliament by way of charts and tables, the request was denied.
Much of the information that Dr Jensen was banned from tabling can be found in a recent publication from the IPA entitled ‘What’s Happening to the Murray River?’.
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The picture of Dr Jensen is from his parliamentary website.
What an ethical lilliputan you have revealed yourself to be, Grendel. You ascribe a raison d’etre to the blog but once again fail to provide a scrap of substantiation. But you are damned even more by your pathetic lack of basic logic.
How, exactly, can a blog that can only function through the addition of words and links in a sequence of files possibly take an action that would suppress the data of others?
It appears that your brain has certain similarities with those recorded in schizophrenics and serious THC abusers. You are capable of ascribing actions and intentions to what is essentially a passive medium. As if this blog is capable of entering other blogs and publishing media and altering the data.
I always suspected that much of the green religion and its climate cult could only ever be properly explained with blood tests and brain MRI scans. So be very, very careful, Grendel, this big blog brother is watching you.
Grendel is on an evangelical mission to save the planet from the evils of the free exchange of ideas, goods and services. Good on ya, mate! A worthy cause.
Facts which don’t confirm Grendel’s favorite socio-economic tropes are the product of a conspiracy. We know this, because Grendel tells us so.
After all, the coming climate apocalypse is so conducive to global economic prosperity; naturally big business will pull out all the stops to destroy our biosphere. Makes perfect sense. The rich can always find another planet to exploit once this one is a blackened cinder.
Like Luke, Grendel supports the RC Wiki pogrom to round up all the denialists and pin yellow stars on their research.
So let’s not pretend that Grendel is here to support the freedom of individual expression and dissent in the face of statist orthodoxy.
Quite the contrary, Grendel is defending the suppression of the presentation of valid data before our parliament during a policy debate. When you are saving planets, the end justifies the means.
And with his usual impeccable Orwellian logic, Grendel rightly concludes those calling for a transparent review of ALL the science are trying to suppress the suppression of the free exchange of information.
Grendel clearly has the moral high ground staked out on this one.
I’m sorry guys, I’m having trouble formulating a coherent response while I laugh so hard at the red faced ‘righteous indignation’ you are attempting to portray above. Unfortunately the irony metre has run off the scale tonight and won’t be repaired until morning.
Its like a Monty Python script – you guys have the most amazing free run in presenting your case but use the public space you inhabit to complain about how repressed you feel.
Pathetic.
Wes – You call for a transparent review of ALL the science. How far back do you want to take that review?
To the dawn of time.
Does Grendel think that any past attempts to suppress valid evidence (for example, by a Bush, Mao or Mugabe) is justification for the current government’s suppression of data during a policy debate? With such high standards Grendel certainly can establish precedent for the most enthusiastic means.
Regardless of Grendel’s Pythonesque logic, the free and open exchange of ideas and data remains a fundamental of prerequisite of functional policy formation in parliament.
“….you guys have the most amazing free run in presenting your case but use the public space you inhabit to complain about how repressed you feel.”
Does Grendel wish to deny us this simple liberty?
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“Like Luke, Grendel supports the RC Wiki pogrom to round up all the denialists and pin yellow stars on their research.”
You have got it the wrong way around. They take bad science that is being publicised and criticise it according to who said it.
It’s about time CSIRO stopped pissing around and got the gloves off with denialists like Jensen really. They’re being too nice.
Fancy letting him get away with such a wanky rainfall analysis and plainfully spurious arguments. But they’re probably busy doing something serious.
Aussies are such a tolerant lot. We still think Motty is cute for an anachronism.
Come on Luke. We all know that the CSIRO people are too busy running around, trying to get money out of everyone to have any time left to do any science.
What a terrible end for a once great organisation.
Dr. Jensen is a well known hard right nutcase. Oh BTW Jen I think some joker has hacked you site and inserted a link to Andrew Bolt’s blog in the “Blogs I Read” list. No thinking person would publically admit to that.
cheers
Patrick.
And not unexpectedly he’s from WA. The state where we don’t want uranium mining but we voted for the only man who would allow it. Bunch of bloody morons over here.
Actually it’s quite weird, this is a link to his site: http://www.dennisjensen.com.au/ which has a recent photo of him. Obviously his concern over the AGW conspiracy is causing him great distress.
The usual unsubstantiated slurs from the “boy wonder”. Of course, in the Qld public service misleading the parliament and the people is now regarded as a core competency. Tell us about the “salinity hazard maps” again, Lukey, we could all do with a good laugh.
One of CSIRO’s main roles these days is to provide consulting “expert panels” that deliver all the key elements of misinformation to the policy process that even the most venal departmental officers are unwilling to put their name to. Of course it comes with the inevitable report with conclusions that have minimal relation to the data that has been presented and always, always, has half a page of indemnity clauses and disclaimers.
It is purely, “No care taken, no responsibility accepted, but do as we say or else”.
Just another day in the brave new green utopia.
“Are you seriously saying that AGW is not GCM driven ”
It is driven by the physical basis, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Without that, there is nothing.
And do tell us, SJT, which of the GCMs predicted that 2008 would have the same global mean temperature as 1979? Exactly half of the total increase in atmosheric CO2 has taken place since 1979 but where is all that warming? In a word, Gone.
And did this loss of warmth have anything to do with curbs on CO2 emissions? Not one jot.
So the cooling we have had over the past few years was entirely natural. The management of total CO2 had absolutely nothing to do with it. And the management of human CO2 emissions had even less to do with it because they both kept going up.
And now we have our little climate retardi mates trying to tell us that it was nature that lowered the temperature but it wasn’t nature that made the temps go up by the same extent only a decade earlier? Awesome logic there SJT, awesome logic.
And of course, when global temperatures drop we can also expect global sea level to drop. But don’t worry, you can always revert to longer and longer moving averages to keep the delusion alive.
“And do tell us, SJT, which of the GCMs predicted that 2008 would have the same global mean temperature as 1979? Exactly half of the total increase in atmosheric CO2 has taken place since 1979 but where is all that warming? In a word, Gone.”
The models don’t pretend to be able to make projections year by year. The warming hasn’t gone, the current dip is no different to the other dips in the record, which will be followed by a rise.
Breathtaking ignorance there, SJT. A drop in global mean temperature is a lot more than a mere “dip” on a graph. It clearly indicates an absence of warmth, and an end to any process of warming. It is, as John Cleese might have said, “an ex warming”.
You do accept the fact that a lower annual global mean temperature is proof that heat that was there before is no longer there now, don’t you? That is exactly what it means, isn’t it?
And if that heat has gone then it follows that any “warming” has also gone, does it not?
And if the heat went without any assistance or intervention by man then it must be an entirely natural correction of a past increase in total heat, mustn’t it?
And if nature can correct the totality of a past heat build up then it is equally likely that nature was responsible for that past build up of heat, isn’t it?
And if nature was responsible for a past heat build up and a corresponding correction of that build up then it follows that nature is more than likely to be responsible for the next heat build up as well, don’t you think?
Now run along now, thats a good fellow, and tell your mates that they have all been a little silly.
Watched the 7.30 report tonight. Deputy PM Julia Gillard answering the opposition and citing supporting references … “which I table …”which I table” …”which I table” … and on, and on. She acted as if she owned the bl–dy table!
The question of this whole post is why, when an opposition MP raises an issue, which is recorded in Hansard, he is then disallowed from tabling the supporting documents. Censorship comes to mind.
“Breathtaking ignorance there, SJT. A drop in global mean temperature is a lot more than a mere “dip” on a graph. It clearly indicates an absence of warmth, and an end to any process of warming. It is, as John Cleese might have said, “an ex warming”.”
Have you looked at the past temperature record? It zig zags all over the place, but the underlying trend is up.
Hey Mottsa – checked your salt levels lately since it started raining? I hear levels are rising.
And BTW how did punching out your fellow Aussies go down at Goolwa? Or did you give it a miss (again)?
Pardon me but I don’t believe that all “science” education is equal.
The “hard science” needs to be understood to recognize the fundamental flaws in the CO2->AGW hypothesis.
To wit, the laws of thermodynamics with at least a passing exposure to convective heat transfer in fluids and gases. It also helps to have a feel for enthalphy; the heat storage capacity and density of materials. And, almost as a passing thought; some wave theory to understand spectral content and how it interacts (potentially) at the molecular level.
A large part of that used to be done in senior high school physics, chemistry and mathematics. (When I were a lad!) And then enriched in the first years of Engineering and hard and some applied science courses.
MBBS I gather is a medical qualification. Those and other qualifications listed are very unlikely to have been exposed to the hard sciences to the necessary degree. (Pun incidental)
BUT! Science education doesn’t limit the scope of learning and wisdom. It opens many doors. Scientists and Engineers should all be equipped with the ability to use the perspective that they’ve gained from science education. That hopefully includes a recognition that they know very little at all; to take spare moments of their lives to broaden and deepen not only their knowledge and understanding; and most importantly; to keep looking again for errors in things that they hold to be true.
It is not beyond those without a formal qualification to graps the concepts involved. It requires persistence and the ability to think logically and abstractly.
There is no greater mistake than to be without doubt about one’s own beliefs and thoughts.
(N.B.: I could be wrong about that!)
There must be no unequal doubt. Scrutiny should be not be biased by the qualifications of those presenting ideas.
Gosh, SJT has discovered that the temp line zigzags all over but the trend is up.
Of course the trend is up, bogan, there has been a long term trend out of the maunder minimum and we have not yet reached the same heights that were present, naturally, before we entered the maunder minimum. Therefore, the trend is still entirely within the natural range of variation.
More importantly, if 2009 has that volcanic eruption that we are rather overdue for then both the actual and the trend will be well below the comparable mid 1980′s and 1990′s troughs that made the 1998 El Nino look so unusual.
This argument of the climate scum that the trend is entirely related to CO2 is pure Bull$hit, as the temp data makes quite clear.
“This argument of the climate scum that the trend is entirely related to CO2 is pure Bull$hit, as the temp data makes quite clear.”
Show me the quote where the IPCC says that.
Will; show me the quote; AR4, Executive Summary p131-132 allocates 2/3′s of GHG forcing, as expressed in temperature to CO2; TAR and AR4 also allocate a temperature response to a doubling of CO2 of 3C, best estimate.
Thanks, Cohenite. I assume they were applying the 2/3rds figure to contemporary forcing. But to my knowledge no one has been either willing or able to determine if or when the entirely natural trend out of the maunder minimum stopped or how it declined.
The obvious next question is how, exactly, did the IPCBull$hit arrive at this 2/3rds figure? Was this another one of those little round the table guesses, where each member plucked a number out of their bum and they then averaged the plucked numbers?
In any event, knock a third off the trend line in the satellite lower atmospheric series and that little bulge from 2002 to 2005 is looking sadder and sadder all the time.
“Of course the trend is up, bogan, there has been a long term trend out of the maunder minimum ”
barf – here we have it – the “scientific” sceptic philosophy – oooo – it’s nature – oooooo swoon – oooooo ! what a science platform – give us a break
And how do you know he/she is a bogan – might be Gothic or Emo
So you agree he’s wrong. Thanks.
Ian; I have a shot at it here;
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/10/temperature-trends-and-carbon-dioxide-a-note-from-cohenite/
Since I wrote that, proving ( ha, ha) that temp trends in the 20thC are entirely natural, the White and Cayon paper and the Compo and Sardeshmukh papers have surfaced proving tha temp trends are entirely caused by ENSO and SST coupling; Bob Tisdale, who is not old, has recently produced a piece on ENSO caused temp trends. I’m beginning to think Will is a character from an Orwell novel.