Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

What to Read, and Things to Do, This Week

By

 1. Let’s give Professor Flimflam Flipflop a Queensland welcome…

“Australia’s Chief Climate Commissioner, Professor Tim Flannery, is visiting Ipswich… Ipswich will be the first public event for the Climate Commission in Queensland. This is your opportunity to ask questions and share ideas with the Climate Commissioners and participate in the national conversation on this vital issue.

Where: Ipswich Civic Centre, Limestone Street, Ipswich
When:  7:00pm – 8:30pm. Thursday 7 April 2011. Doors open 6:45pm.

Seats are limited so please register, or call (02) 6159 7624, by Wednesday 6 April 2011.

http://climatecommission.us2.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=16cc7ff2b909f36473564f21f&id=687f10fc9e

[via Malcolm Roberts]

2. Leaked Labor ‘Carbon Tax’ Strategy

Last week an internal government document issued to all Labor MPs with 16 pages of suggestions as to how members of the government might best sell the idea of a carbon dioxide tax to the public was leaked.  This document and a critique of it by Bob Carter, Alan Moran and David Evans is now available online here:

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/04/climate-change-facts 

[via Bob Carter]

3. Ask for The Land

Rural NSW weekly, The Land, has started publishing stories from my recent trip along the Murray River.  The Land comes out each Thursday.  It is for sale in most, larger Australian newsagencies.  Get yourself a copy.

4.  ‘Why No Dangerous Rise in Temperatures Threatens’ by Des Moore

“Let me just make it clear here that, like Garnaut, I am not a scientist. But my nearly 50 years experience as an economic analyst both in Treasury and outside provides a basis for assessing the credibility of data used to justify the dangerous warming thesis and for examining alternative explanations by sceptical scientists. Contrary to Garnaut’s assertion, qualified outsiders must pass judgement on science-based proposals –if they did not there would be a much bigger hole in government budgets!”
 
http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2011/04/why-no-dangerous-rise-in-temperatures-threatens.html

[via Val Majkus]

5.  Remember Alan Carlin?

You may remember the fuss within the US EPA about 18 months ago, when an internal economic analysis report (that didn’t favour IPCC alarmism) written by one Alan Carlin caused a sensation (leading, I think I remember, to Carlin’s resignation or dismissal?).
 
Anyway that excellent analysis has now been published in an open-source, peer-reviewed journal

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/4/985/pdf

[via Bob Carter]

Consider this an open thread.  Let other readers of this blog know what you are watching, listening, reading and doing this week by way of a comment in the following thread.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. el gordo says

    So now it’s warming reduces cyclones? I’ll sleep on that.

    In other news the NSW irrigators won’t be involved in the ‘water buybacks’ for the rest of the financial year. It seems the state reached its 80 gigalitre limit in last month’s $40 million tender.

    Mark Siebentritt, from water brokers Waterfind, says it could lead to less competition in the next round of buybacks.

    “Whereas they were oversubscribed in round two, that may not be the case as much for round three, largely because I suppose, on one hand, NSW is now closed off,” he said.

    “But also a number of those people that have put in bids for round two may have been accepted. One could speculate this could lead to some perhaps stronger prices.”

    Very odd, once the bureaucratic structure is in place they blindly carry on as if another long drought is just around the corner. Shouldn’t BoM advise them that it’s going to be damp in NSW for at least 20 years and the ‘buyback’ strategy should be scrapped?

  4. Neville says

    By heck Luke you can jump and jive with the best of them.
    What’s next more snow, higher MDM rainfall, SWWA to be wetter for next 30 years or no temp increases until 2030?

    Bolt has some really interesting stuff on his blog this morning, just hope the Ch 10 story is true because we badly need a true conservative CA show in this country.

    If it gets up his show on the kiddies stn should shake things up quite a bit.
    So far I can see Lachlan and Gina’s hands all over this, I just hope it gets up.

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/

  7. el gordo says

    ‘Wet for another 20 years – how stupid!’

    It was a bit of a fudge, on average there is around 14 years between major droughts.

  8. Neville says

    Let’s hope the electorate continue to hold Labor’s feet firmly over the flames until the idiots either get rid of Juliar or drop the co2 tax.

    If anyone gets the chance, please ask silly Timmy if Monckton’s 0.00005C temp reduction due to our 5% sacrifice by 2020 is accurate or not.
    If he says no it’s not accurate then ask the dummy what his guesstimate is and how does he calculate it. But insist on an answer to the nearest fraction of a degree and then ask how it was calculated.

    I know this is strange stuff to Luke but Timmy is the govt’s spokeman to sell the co2 tax to we the great unwashed so we should exploit this fool at every opportunity.

    In fact everyone going to the meetings should have at least a dozen well researched and chosen questions to ask this panel.
    I mean they are working on behalf of Labor and the Greens to try and decieve and tell lies to the electorate. The same electorate btw who are paying them their ridiculously bloated salaries to pedal this CAGW deception.

  9. Dave says

    I find Mr Flannery extremely depressing. Well, I guess he is annoying and it is the mindlessly corrupt elected officials and media morons that lick his spittle (I hope I am not being too rude) that really depress me. Remember when Australian banknotes had scientists and engineers on the higher denominations? The relationship between Government and Science has plummeted since the banknotes became PC. Flannery, however, has always been consistent. Well, from the Future Eaters on anyway. I never read his Mammals of New Guinea, but since FE at least he has taken on PT Barnum ‘s maxim and thrived. Throwim Way Leg had a wonderfully incorrect, ludicrous, and no doubt revealing story about his encounter with chiggers and scrub typhus that I used to use on exams. Is it fair to blame Flannery because the government and its lapdog media are so credulous? Perhaps we should be embracing him as an Australian original in beclowning.

  11. cementafriend says

    Re Alan Carlin (website http://www.carlineconomics.com/) over at WUWT I commented as follows “It is disappointing to read a few comments about minor points of Alan’s large paper. Alan has a physics degree and a PhD in economics. He certainly has a better grasp of science than Lord Stern whom the British government used a basis for their policy and Garnaut who prepared a report for the Australian government, and further he has a better knowledge of economics than either of these two . Als0, he has a better grasp of the science and economics than anyone in the US EPA. It seems that the (so called) lady who heads the US EPA does not know she breathes out CO2 (or in her terms pollutes the atmosphere). Have a look at the abstract of the paper. It is about economics. He basically says that the economic benefits of reducing CO2 emissions have been very much exaggerated, the costs of reducing CO2 has been very much underestimated and that if there is a need to do anything there are better ways.”
    Garnaut, the Greens and the Labour Government have a poor grasp of economics. It is worth reading Alan Carlin’s recent paper and some of his other papers and posts on his website.

  12. cementafriend says

    A commentator on Alan Carlin’s website put
    “From your own experience in the EPA and from the other skeptic scientists I speak about, the most basic problem of all becomes ever more apparent: People who seemingly do everything they can to promote the idea of man-caused global warming also seem to take extreme efforts to marginalize their critics – silence them, by default – rather than squarely face those critics and show us all what is wrong with the criticisms. This prompts an obvious question – do they have no confidence in the underlying science supporting the idea of man-caused global warming?”
    One can recognise that from the naming in public forums and even parliament of skeptics such as Jennifer, Jo Nova, Andrew Bolt etc. Some of the commentators on this blog fall in the same category.

  14. Neville says

    But cement Luke and others can’t even answer the basic questions that must be answered before any country should even try to bring in a co2 tax.

    I’ve been asking them for years but all you cop is abuse because they can’t answer and they know it.

  15. val majkus says

    A very enlightening article on who is going to pay the ‘carbon’ tax and the result
    http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2011/04/the-pea-and-the-peppercorn
    (a couple of paras to give you the gist)
    Back in 2008 when Penny Wong was Australia’s top weather girl she said, “We’d anticipate approximately 1000 Australian companies would be required to obtain permits under the scheme. Obviously, we’ll focus primarily on the large polluters.” The worry word is “primarily”.

    But exactly who are the top 1000 dirty polluters? Well, when it comes to electricity, it seems that many of the top “dirty polluters” are the state governments of Queensland and New South Wales and the various other states who have either sold bits of their “dirty pollution business” to unsuspecting shareholders — or run some “dirty electricity business” on the side. So when Julia Gillard talks about dirty rotten scoundrels who pollute, she is talking about nearly every state government in this country.

  16. TonyfromOz says

    Sort of places a sharply focussed spotlight on why the former State Government tried for so long to sell all their power plants, eh!

    As I explained with the image at the following post, 14 of those 20 top, er, ‘Polluters’ are in fact electrical power providers.

    They are (in the main) owned by State Governments who have cleverly farmed out the money collection only to private Companies who just collect the money, keep their cut and then send the rest on to those Governments, hence people subconsciously think that the name at the top of the bill is the great big dirty ‘polluter’.

    http://papundits.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/australian-greens-party-senator-bob-brown-and-his-big-polluters/

    Tony.

  18. el gordo says

    My bad.

    ‘A lack of “credible information” is one of the main reasons that 40 per cent of Australians do not believe that humans have a role in global warming, according to the head of the federal government’s Climate Commission, Tim Flannery.’

    That’s better.

  22. debbie says

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/05/3182716.htm

    http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2011/04/06/316261_latest-news.html

    Here are a couple of MSM stories which are starting to highlight the insanity of current water policy.

    When asked what involvement the states had in the development of the draft plan, one bureaucrat said they were: “not involved at all” and the MDBA was simply feeding them a range volumes from 2200-2400 gigalitres

    BTW Jen, Great article in the Land.

  23. Neville says

    Sorry my point above should read– subtract 5% of 1.3% etc or 0.065% from 1.3% = 1.235%

  25. val majkus says

    Good news – the scare is over! The global temperature has fallen .653°C (from +0.554 in March 2010 to -0.099 in March 2011) in just one year. That’s a magnitude nearly equivalent to the agreed upon global warming signal agreed upon by the IPCC. It is quite a sharp drop. (from WUWT)
    Dr Spencer’s comments here
    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/04/uah-temperature-update-for-march-2011-cooler-still-0-10-deg-c/
    and interesting comments including this one:
    All you guys are missing the point which is that The IPCC science team has, as yet, not had the opportunity to adjust these temperatures to a standard that is expected from such an organisation.

    … sigh … and just when I was getting excited about not being alarmed

  26. el gordo says

    Joe Bastardi also makes the interesting comment that ‘the drop in the tropics is astounding since last year (1C). The implications as to the ENERGY budget of the ocean-atmosphere system, which I feel is the real measuring stick here, not global temps.’

  27. debbie says

    Found this as one of the comments at Bolt’s site.
    This could be an ineteresting series to watch?
    Attach:
    Part one of a four part series about climate change over the last two hundred thousand years aired on the History Channel last night.It is called Man on Earth. I found it very informative and recommend it to anyone trying to get some perspective on the current debate.
    In my opinion using taxation to change climate is a nonsensical notion. It reminds me of the Aztecs using human sacrifice to appease their gods, in that it is those in charge doing what they wanted to do anyway under the guise of achieving some totally unrelated, unmeasurable and unattainable outcome.
    It looks like rain and when and how much of it falls is the key element in determining climate so perhaps a better use of our time and effort would be to try and gain the ability to produce rain by seeding clouds.

    Trish of Beautiful Bribie (Reply)
    Wed 06 Apr 11 (07:43am)

  28. Mack says

    It’s good to see the NZPA getting the chop. After 131yrs!
    This is very good news for sceptics as all the items I’ve ever seen in the papers by NZPA about climate have always been the usual infuriating AGW claptrap.

  29. Asperamanka says

    Another thing to do.

    Consolidate available temperture data. Yes, I’ve heard it’s the sun, cosmic rays, rottion of the earth, urban heat island etc etc etc.

    Scattered all over the world, there are huge numbers of long-term temperature records, compiled by farmers, who did for their own uses, not to seek grants. These provide a huge data set of independent temperature records. Search them out. Put scans of their records on the WWW. Let us analyse the figures and show that there is no upward trend.

    There are plenty of people around with the money (and it wouldn’t take much) to do this. An army of willing volunteers can transcribe temperatures and dates into data.

    Why isn’t anyone doing this?

  32. debbie says

    Val,
    “Sounds” is right.
    It is about as close as you can get to complete and utter crap!
    Knowles is trying to portray himself as a ‘great bloke’ and I have no doubt he probably is.
    He is also taking pains to apologise for the abysmal treatment of MDB communities.
    Sorry,
    While we accept the apology and we find him a much nicer and amiable bloke to talk to, that is not the issue and it never was.
    It isn’t about personalities.
    We need to focus on the issues, not the personalities.
    Same goes for Minister Burke who is a way nicer person than Penny Wong.
    It still doesn’t change anything else!
    We have not seen a revamped plan and it is still going to be totally hamstrung but that woefully inadequate and narrow Water Act!!!
    So that’s what this particular MDB irrigator thinks.

  33. val majkus says

    Debbie I agree with your concerns, the revamped plan (see the above link) The Murray-Darling Basin Authority chairman has said the proposed water allocation cutbacks in the draft basin plan is set to be released in June or July – would be open to negotiation.
    So I agree with your ‘hamstringing’ remarks so keep pushing Barnaby’s review of the Act
    My experience of watching this Govt in action is that it produces motherhood statements and fails to deliver
    and I have no faith in Tony Windsor
    I’d be pleased to be proven wrong but keep pushing Barnaby for his Senate review

  34. val majkus says

    Asperamanka check out Warwick Hughes http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=880#comments
    for a 1932-1990 study link
    and http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/the-australian-temperature-record-part-1-queensland/ for a 5 or six part study by Ken Stewart
    of a review of the Australian High Quality Climate Site dataset
    Also Jo Nova http://joannenova.com.au/2011/02/announcing-a-formal-request-for-the-auditor-general-to-audit-the-australian-bom/
    for some info on BOM audit request
    and links to studies

  35. debbie says

    VAL,
    Unfortunately that senate review has been delayed.
    And why am I not surprised?

  37. CJ Morgan says

      Let’s give Professor Flimflam Flipflop a Queensland welcome…

    I see that you’re maintaining your mature and reasoned approach to AGW, Jennifer. No wonder you’re so influential.

  44. el gordo says

    We have the smallest sunspot cycle in 200 years and, if there are no volcanic eruptions in the coming years, it may be possible to gauge whether the sun has any role to play in falling temperatures

  46. el gordo says

    I have returned to this thread to tell you of a rumor I picked up.

    Martin Ferguson is going to topple the PM before the end of May. Ludicrous it may sound, but as Labor’s only genuine sceptic they will have little choice, as the polls tell a story of electoral disaster to come.

    At this moment I cannot say if my source is correct, but he seems genuinely convinced by what he’s heard.