Explaining the Protest against Al Gore: Leon Ashby
Posted by jennifer, July 11th, 2009 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change, People
ON Monday 13th July [the day after tomorrow] as 1,000 invited guests attend a breakfast with Al Gore at Docklands Peninsula [Melbourne] at 7am, an expected crowd of about 50 – 100 people will protest that Al Gore should debate the science of Climate change properly before any emissions trading schemes begin.
A leaflet with 17 Questions will be given to guests as they arrive.
The message of the protest will be, since Gores movie was produced:
* Global temperatures have decreased;
* The Arctic Ice Cap has increased back to average levels;
* Sea levels have stopped rising;
* Only 5 independant IPCC scientists said they agreed CO2 was the cause of Climate change (not 2,500);
* 31,000 Us Scientists have signed a petition saying there is no conclusive evidence CO2 causes climate change;
* The IPCC temperature predictions have been shown to be wrong; and
* The Vostock Ice cores show (in past warming events) temperature rises before CO2 does (the opposite of Al Gores claims).
The protesters conclude AL GORE IS WRONG, Climate Change is natural – not man made.
We believe the evidence is overwhelming and the world deserves a proper debate before we reverse our economies and standards of living and starve millions of third world people all for no climatic benefit.
Leon Ashby
President The Climate Sceptics
The warmingly religious are generally happy to accept current govt proposals because it’s the precautionary principle, stupid!
At least Hansen is honest enough to condemn these proposals for what they are yet Gore just uses them to further his fortune.
The fact that the religious are happy to pay these amounts to go and listen to this scoundrel speaks volumes about the cult.
A very good interview by Fielding leading the abc’s world today at 1pm, he easily held his ground (easy when your using facts and the truth) and pressed his no warming with co2 rising argument very well.
Gore sounded a bit sick to me afterwards trying to insist that just a few naysayers are out there and it’s difficult to explain the science. ( what BS)
You’ve also been astroturfed to death. Spin you right round round. Make you think this and that.
Looks like the good senator Fielding is spreading the word. So you’re home and hosed. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/13/2624157.htm
Pity the atmosphere doesn’t care either way.
Anyway – how’d the big Melbourne demo go? Did Al take a brochure? Did 100s show up?
Re Patick B’s dribbling diatribe about denialism and his reference to Quiggin just underscores what a bunch of academic light weights we have here in Australia.
Parick B was too stupid to even look up todays Australian and he would have seen adundant evidence for why there has to be denialism as he calls it. Some one has to stand uo to these clowns.
Why would 20m people responsible for less the 1.2% of the problem be required to take the lead as Gore and Wong are saying.
Why should this country put 23000 out of work by 2020, and 60000 by 2050 just to achieve an outcome of 0.003C by 2100.
Why is it that there are so many supposedly intelligent people at the forefront of the push for Australia to take the lead, are so completely devoid of any semblance of common sense,even if AGW was true in all respects.
Just filing this here:
http://www.safeclimateaustralia.org/
What Al Gore launched this morning.
Patrick B
Unfortunately the weight of evidence shows that it’s your side who are quickest with the ad hominems – Luke started it off years ago in his Ken Done mask.
As Bjorn Lomborg has shown, the belief that there is an environmental problem has been overstated – in facts things are getting better – and it is only the capiltalist system that allows us the resources to deal with it.
Historically the worst environmental degraders have been the socialists, but if you think that a totalitarian regime based on Ecomorals is the way to go, go for it, but don’t impose it on the rest of us.
And just filing this here:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,27574,25771854-2862,00.html
It claims about 30 demonstrated outside – from the climate sceptics party
PS Well done guys!
I think comments from Neville bear out my points on ad homs, the intellectually inferior ranting against there betters with the meager resources available to them. Interestingly Neville appears to be unable to think in the abstract, specifically he’s unable to recognise an analogy.
I think Louie helps us understand the ideological nature of the denialist camp and its relationship to hard right politics.
For him it is the “socialists” who are the greatest destroyers of the environment. We may ask, what part of socialist ideology is it that brought about the alleged destruction? Are there teachings exclusive to socialism that encourage and reward destruction of the environment? I think not, but to a fundamentalist it is merely the observation that the there was (allegedly) greater environmental destruction in socialist countries that leads to the conclusion that one causes the other. Perhaps this is what replaces analysis in the world of the hard right?
Jennifer
On a slightly different track, there is a post over at ICECAP about the trials and tribulations imposed upon a Princeton Uni Professor named William Happer.
Gore had the man fired for asking questions about the ozone restrictions back in 1993.
Read about it here.
Couple of highlights.
“Why not measure directly the thing that worries you, which is UV-B at the surface, not just reductions in stratospheric ozone?” he asks. DOE, under Happer’s direction, developed an Ozone Project to build an improved network for measuring UV-B at ground level. But Happer soon discovered that’s not the way science works in Washington, D.C. He says the ozone alarmists in the Clinton administration “want to declare victory and make sure that no one second-guesses them.”
Gore has been using the “debate is over” dodge for a very long time.
Happer’s question is worth persuing. What is the current UV-B measurement at the surface, underneath the “ozone hole”? How do polar measurements compare with the UV-B along the equator?
Maybe you’ll revisit the ozone controversy in a post sometime.
The protest went well. we had 30 walking from Southern cross station to where Gores breakfast was. For 15 minutes we had the crowd of 1,000 lined up ready to go in and we explained the four graphs and the evidence CO2 is not having any substantial effect on climate several times to them all.
Another small group of sceptics we didn`t know of prior were there as well. A couple more of our mob turned up where we were so about 40 sceptics were there in total.
Photos are being put on twitter (http://www.twitpic.com/photos/climatesceptics) very soon
We were interviewed by two TV crews
The mood was very confident. Only a couple of people wanted to debate us.
Patrick B
“the observation that the there was (allegedly) greater environmental destruction in socialist countries ”
Much like the graffiti on our own publicly owned transport, but when everyone owns it, no one owns it, and so no one cares about it.
But perhaps you should read up a little on the objects of your political hatred – calling me a “hard righter” is simply displaying ignorance. I’m a libertarian in which individual rights are paramount, which involves the respect of other’s rights, and that automatically means we voluntarily abstain from activities which may impinge on other’s rights.
The problem with collectivists is that by worshipping the idol of egalitarianism, you consume all your capital, leaving society with nothing for a rainy day. Your solution is then to borrow from the future, a giant legally sanctioned Ponzi scheme.
But the belief science is dependant on one’s political leanings should give one some pause – maybe AGW isn’t science like physics is – after gravity’s verity is NOT dependent on one’s political position. Gravity is apolitical but clearly AGW isn’t, and so it cannot be science despite the scientific method being used by its proselytisers.
Has it never occurred to you that the very fact AGW is monopolised by the socialists is the problem and why it can’t be science? That’s why we call it Lysenkoist because it is politically correct “science”.
A very good interview by Fielding leading the abc’s world today at 1pm, he easily held his ground (easy when your using facts and the truth) and pressed his no warming with co2 rising argument very well.
now if only his argument was based on facts…
over the last 15 years, all temperature data is showing the global temp going UP.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:180/plot/wti/last:180/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:180/trend/plot/uah/last:180/trend/plot/rss/last:180/trend/plot/gistemp/last:180/trend/plot/none
why can t anyone of his “science team” correct this basic error that he is stating in every speech he gives?
Down is up?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10584135
Highest-ever retail sales figures for clothing have coincided with an especially cold, wet and early winter, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) says.
http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1652655
Farmers looking for a little heat – The Beacon Herald – Ontario, CA
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8146995.stm
Almost 250 children under the age of five have died in a wave of intensely cold weather in Peru.
Children die from pneumonia and other respiratory infections every year during the winter months particularly in Peru’s southern Andes.
But this year freezing temperatures arrived almost three months earlier than usual.
ah just one more.
AFP: Brown’s climate change adviser has swine flu
LONDON (AFP) — A key adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown has contracted swine flu and was banned from attending the G8 summit in Italy, reports said late Sunday.
Brown’s senior climate change adviser Michael Jacobs is thought to have picked up the flu during a working visit to Mexico where the A(H1N1) virus first appeared, The Times said on its website.
Do viral infections type cast?
It’s Al talkin’, in depth,….” The planet now has a fever.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/13/2624511.htm
And Bill Gates is going to mess with nature….
http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/One_force_of_nature_vs_another_Bill_Gates_wants_to_stop_hurricanes_50385622.html
re; Comment from: Leon Ashby July 13th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Looking forward to seeing the pics.
Maybe you can prevail upon http://algorelied.com/ or http://australianclimatemadness.blogspot.com/
to host them.
So we can pass them around to the crew, you know.
Well done Leon. Hopefully the first of many street protests hassling the Goracle.
Late night toofer from the Instapundit.
EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Potato famine disease striking home gardens in U.S. I blame Global Warming! Oh, wait: “This year’s cool, wet weather created perfect conditions for the disease.” Okay, I blame Climate Change!
EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Rain and cool weather wash away millions of tourism dollars in Northeast. “Relentless rain and cool weather since early June have sent visitors scrambling home and washed away millions of tourism dollars across the Northeast. But the first 80-degree readings this month gave a glimmer of hope Friday that summer can be salvaged.” I blame Global Warming1 Er, I mean, Climate Change!
James Mayeau,
No, no it’s climate variability that is the cause of all this – it’s still warming you know, our statistics tell us this emphatically!
Thanks Leon.
You done good.
All the major news channels carried pictures and stories of your effort and though short at least gave some balance.
And I got the impression they were looking for something to balance the BS.
Big Al , on the ABC 7.30 report, started to sweat “The planet now has a fever” when it was put to him that many scientists disagreed with several aspects of AIT and that the British High Court had found there to be errors in the “documentary”. But the Goracle that he is, waved his hand and said “pfft”, and all was found wanting was true once more.
Good show Leon. AAP’s Headline is ” ‘Junk Science’ Activists Crash Gore Party”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,,25772662-421,00.html
‘Junk Science’ Activists Crash Gore Party”
make it 30 ‘Junk Science’ Activists try to Crash Gore Party”, and the headline ecven got the facts right.
but that is not important in denialist circles…
WJP
Gore had the gall to try and say that the judgement in Britaan was to his favour without explaining what that was.
The Court found that he could display his AIT providing it was corrected in 9 major areas and that the British Education system took steps to ensure that all sides were explained.
Of course the ABC this evening didnt press him on his conflicts of interest, and the fact that the AIT is no more than a modern version of an prospectus, were those gullible people who have already invested may only get a return if he delivers on the major govt changes required. eg the Waxma Markey bill in USA and the ETS here.
http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pubs.html?id=654
He has a clear conflict of interest.
“Gore had the gall to try and say that the judgement in Britaan was to his favour without explaining what that was.”
It was. The judge agreed that most of what Gore said was correct.
The court didn’t have the time to hear all the complaints so they asked for a representative few.
Every count heard by the court was ruled against Gore.
That’s the story I read. Tim Ball gave the details.
You want a link?
James Mayeau
You will notice that SJT doesnt dispute the fact that Gore has a major conflict of interest and that he has amassed a fortune since losing his VP job
All SJT wants to do is try and distract attention from that, by disputing something that has been well written about namely his court case in the UK which Gore may have technically won, but beyond that it was a big poke in the eye for the lard arsed fraudster.
“You can be so wrong so instantly. AGW is only one reason among many for climate change, no one has ever claimed other wise.”
SJT July 13th, 2009 at 9:18 am
WTF that certainly is Worse Than Failure. I accept that the climate changes to state the damn obvious but AGW means Anthropogenic Global Warming doesn’t it? The last time I looked Anthropogenic meant caused by humans and Global Warming was what was being caused. This in turn it is argued causes all the climate change that is going to kill Gaia.
So now we should concern ourselves with climate change that humans don’t cause. I see SJT you are changing sides. So please quantify. How much climate change is caused by other factors? What percentage is due to humans? There are a myriad of other causes that is what is being argued by the side that opposes you.
Little Sod,
“over the last 15 years, all temperature data is showing the global temp going UP.”
This is supposed to prove the latest Global Climate Change pronouncements, handed down by the High Priests of GCC, that it is warming faster than projections??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
So, Little Sod, SJT, Luke…
How is that tropospheric hot spot coming along???? The IPCC claim that warming from ANY source should cause a hot spot. Is their physics wrong, or, is the data showing more than actual warming???
It is really irrelevant as the warming we have seen is benign and CONSISTENT WITH natural CC!!
How does it feel to be ignorant tools of religious nuts!!
“How does it feel to be ignorant tools of religious nuts!!”
I was hoping you could tell me.
Pactrick B
Somewhere you disagreed that socialism tends to be environmentally destructive.
Here is evidence for the prosecution.
http://mat-rodina.blogspot.com/2009/07/death-of-aral.html
My case stands.
Kuhnkat
The reason SJT asks is that he is blissfully unaware of his position as a “useful idiot”. It’s these who are unaware of being used.
SJT
Thought this might enlighten you.
http://noteviljustwrong.com/blog/9-general/124-uk-lawyer-slams-gore-over-court-case-claims.html
BTW Lomborg points out in todays Australian that if all the Kyoto obligated countries did what was required, it would still only reduce the temperature by 0.22C by 2100.
Building the pyramids probably had a better cost benefit than this.
Only frauds and fools would be still persist with this nonsense.
A response to Leon Ashby’s presentation: “Why an Emissions trading Scheme (ETS) is not necessary”
Who is “Leon Ashby”? What is his education in natural sciences? What research papers has he submitted to the field?
All we really know is he is a director of the right-wing think tank “Institute of Public Affairs” and the “Australian Environment Foundation” is a front group of it.
But still he writes and distributes his opinion on climate change which i’ll discredit here.
> Is CO2 a pollutant?
What makes it, or not makes it a pollutant is whether it is a greenhouse gas and whether greenhouse gases will warm the earth. The argument presented is simply begging he question. The argument also hijacks this ‘question’ by trying to introduce what carbon dioxide can also do. To try and win the argument by convincing the reader that climate science is complicated isn’t valid.
> Only 3.4% of the CO2 is human caused
This argument disregards that there’s a required balance needed in the atmosphere and it is only that 3.4% that is the problem. To start talking about the other 96% of greenhouse gases is simply trying to hijack the argument again.
> Frontier Modelling says it will cost Australia
Who is Frontier Modelling? A company commissioned by Malcolm Turnbull. Financial statistics like this are so easy to manipulate. The cost of reducing that 3.4% CO2 follows an exponential graph. Reducing the first 1% is cheap and will cost each australia eg $20 per year, while the last 0.1% no doubt involves so many industries and methods of manufacturing that it would cost a ridiculous amount. Taking a realistic perspective: once we spend a couple of years cutting down the first percent or two of this “exponential graph” will start to flatten and innovation and economics will take over. This is very much what happened with CFCs – the original binding target was not enough to fix the problem but once it was put into place everything else solved itself very quickly.
> 31,000 Scientists saying CO2 does not cause climate change
The argument leading up to this is ridiculous. How some brain dead donkey can think a scientist not being able to give more than 90% certainty equates to saying “does not cause” is ludicrous.
All you can conclude here is:
* From 2,500 papers only 2 papers were independent, dealt with CO2 levels, made it to the second review, and did not reach a 90% certainty.
But what you can also conclude is:
* 95% of the papers concluded climate change was more likely than not affected by human activity (the main conclusion from IPCC)
* 80% of the papers on CO2 concluded climate change was almost definitely attributed to CO2 levels,
* 16% of the papers on CO2 levels gave quality to a conclusion, the others no doubt were more quantifiable research papers which in turn gave foundation to those papers which could qualify, IPCC had to review them still to check such priori.
* 50% of the papers on CO2 levels made a second review, the IPCC only took those papers it felt gave concrete or unique enough conclusion into the second review,
* 25% of the papers were on CO2 levels, climate change is a complicated science, and papers related can be submitted from any of the natural science fields.
To so blatantly twist and manipulate the IPCC findings like this in my opinion immediately discredits everything presented by Leon Ashby. This is scaremongering, not realistic scientific questioning.
The truth is that from the 2,500 papers the IPCC evaluated over 95% concluded that global warming was real and more likely than not affected by human activity. Compare this to you wont find many scientists who can give you a 100% certainly that einstein’s theory of relativity stands, and probably many that can throw doubts even on newton’s laws. Furthermore what type of scientists constitute this “31,000″? economic scientists? medical scientists? One petition is hardly comparable to 2,500 research papers.
When there’s such a large scientific consensus supporting a strong probability, especially when climate science itself is statistical mathematics and all about probability, isn’t it the public’s responsibility to fall in line and leave further questioning to the experts?
> Climate change is natural, and warmer periods occur without human CO2 emissions being the cause
Notice the timelines all vary. This line of climate skepticism always requires a precise timeline selection for each graph. Mostly it’s just manipulation of statistics again.
From the first paragraph of wikipedia’s Global Warming article:
“The IPCC also concludes that variations in natural phenomena such as solar radiation and volcanoes produced most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a small cooling effect afterward. These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming This wikipedia entry seems the best rebuttal to “warming periods” skepticism.
> The Evidence of the Arctic Ice Cap
A lie. Last summer it was the thinner it’s _ever_ been with only 50cm thickness in places.
> list of Scientists who have found the opposite results to Miskolczi … It will mean Australia`s economy will become the
> equivalent of Cambodia`s within 10 years.
All emotive pleas with some magic number “0.33″ pseudo-science in between. The fossil fuel industry is spending millions of dollars every week on creating crud around climate change.
How would you expect it to appear?
And are you surprised people want to follow this convenient interpretation?
that’s a great critique, mck – agree
point about size – venom from a funnel web spider is about 4 millionths the weight of the average adult – but is usually lethal left untreated.
CO2 in the atmosphere will become just as lethal, left untreated. By the time you can prove it to a 100% degree of accuracy – it will be too late – then what will you all do with the precious money you’ve saved?
Of what value is an economy of any magnificence – if there is no planet in which to operate it?
The risk of non-action is far greater by orders of magnitude than that of action that fails – after all, we can still rescue a stricken economy – but who’s going to build us a new planet?
Following on from Mck above, I’ve written a detailed (35 page) response to Leon Ashby’s presentation “Why an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is not necessary” at http://tinyurl.com/ashby-response
By my reckoning Ashby got two things right and one half-right, against 27 wrong and 14 red herrings. What I can’t understand is how a “sceptic” could post such easily debunked material? Didn’t he check his facts?
One thing’s right though – the ETS is a great big con! The Treasury says it won’t even reduce emissions the claimed paltry 5% (see http://tinyurl.com/chart3-6). And the Opposition’s fig leaf is even worse (13% increase in emissions). Both the old parties are useless, carbon-captured has-beens.
Let’s hope the Government listens to the Greens’ suggestion (based on Garnaut) of a straight $20/tonne carbon tax for two years, with no targets initially: http://greens.org.au/node/5624