Dear Jen
The Adelaide Advertiser has not published your letter to the editor in response to the very crazy claims it published on Saturday from Minister Paul Caica. It published errors of fact and has not corrected them.[1]
The news today in Adelaide is the new Goyder Institute Report which can be downloaded here:
http://www.goyderinstitute.org/uploads/Expert%20Panel%20Final_020412.pdf
This report has been written by some of our most popular scientists including: Aldridge KT, Jolly ID, Nicol J, Oliver RL, Paton DC and Walker KF. This is the same Dr Walker who told the ABC TV Media Watch team that Lake Alexandrina has always been a freshwater lake.
I know this report is going to be demanding more freshwater for South Australia and more freshwater for the Lower Lakes. It will be very popular in Adelaide.
We lost the Grand Prix to Victoria. Now we want their water.
No one wants to hear your sensible practical solution of restoring the Murray River’s estuary. In South Australia we just want to complain and we want more water and the Adelaide Advertiser wants to sell more newspapers.
Charlotte Ramotswe.
PS Regarding that Media Watch researcher: Xanthe Kleinig. There is a Kleinig’s Hill near the town of Victor Harbour. Should Media Watch have told viewers their chief researcher perhaps had a family interest in more freshwater or told views that this was another Kleinig family? And Kleinig’s Producer at Media Watch Lin Buckfield is a member of a band called Bully Girls.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Can I do anything about the Adelaide Advertiser never publishing my responses to its misinformation about me and/or the Lower Lakes?
I noted today from Bryan Leyland:
“Greenpeace put out a television advertisement claiming that 20,000 birds had been killed as a result of the Rena oil spill. It went on to claim that offshore drilling could kill 20 million+ birds.
“I complained to the advertising standards authority [in New Zealand] on the basis that the records showed that no more than 2000 birds had been killed and that 20 million birds was probably more than existed in the ocean around New Zealand.
They upheld the 1st complaint but not the 2nd. I personally think that the 2nd one was the more extreme.
In their response, Greenpeace said that I was a “climate change denier” and implied that the advertising standards authority should not take any notice of what I said.
The decision itself can be found here.
http://www.asa.co.nz/decisions_to_media.php “
It’s so frustrating isn’t it Jennifer.
I just received an email from an extreme warmist who writes letters to the editor of the Byron Bay Echo. I’d sent him all the current charts showing static warming for 15 years, decreasing sea level rise etc. This is what I got back:
I wonder if these esteemed scientists also claim all the other lakes in the SE of SA are freshwater, Lake Eliza, Lake St Clair, Lake George etc. which are al open to the sea like Lake Alexandrina was.
here’s an article about fishing Lake George.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2008/s2353459.htm
John,
quote form the email to you.
“I see the evidence of rising temperatures and seas wherever I travel. “
I spend at least six months every year overseas on business, from Europe to SA and Canada to Brazil. Not in the States unfortunately.
Done it for some time now and never noticed any of that.
I’ll be leaving for Toronto in a couple of days and checked the weather, yesterday light snow, today sunny periods 10C. Quite normal for the time of year.
I know it grates with Luke to mention anecdotal evidence but I do talk to locals about a lot of things, the current and past weather/climate included, specially when it was in the news more than it is now.
Hardly anyone could tell the difference between fifty years ago and now.
I wonder how this fellow can do that?
Sensitive skin maybe?
“In their response, Greenpeace said that I was a “climate change denier” ”
That is now a code-phrase among the “progressives” that meas to say you are crazy and require psychological treatment and anything you say can be safely disregarded:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/02/rewriting-history-treatment-of-sceptics-disappears-from-university-of-oregon-press-statement/
So whey they label you “climate change denier” that is a “dogwhistle” communication to others of their ilk that you are to be ignored. If you don’t use the phrase “dogwhistle” in Australia, it refers to those very high pitched whistles that humans can not hear but dogs can. It means to imply that a phrase might mean one thing to most people but is a sort of “code phrase” to certain groups. “Denier” to the hard core enviro-communists apparently means you are crazy.
John,
I have the same frustrations with these people who refuse to look at the data.
Throw this at your emailer. If temps are rising they should be going up everywhere – but not on the North Coast of NSW – or in many country towns throughout Australia.
Byron Bay does not have a very long temp record but the Lighthouse goes back to 1975. Very little change.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=058009&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
Lismore (Centre St) has a longer history but has closed in favour of an AWS at the airport.
There is very little change – I suspect it has gone down (as has Casino nearby).
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=058037&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
Yes, there is some beach erosion, especially Kingscliff at the moment. But I remember the beach after the cyclone when Sheltering Palms was washed away and was abandoned in the 1970’s and the pier at Byron Bay washed away in 1972. The dunes at Belongil spit were barricaded with old car bodies. Beaches on the Gold Coast were destroyed in 1967 and again in 1972. These were years when temps were supposedly cooler and global cooling was being touted.
He’s not worth your time Ian, or my reply.
Charlotte,
Inside secret, the Grand Prix is a money loser, we’re glad to lose it to Victoria.
According to news reports only 300 people showed up in Adelaide today. So after a full court press, and all the ministers arm-twisting for the last month, all the annoying Advertiser ‘save the murray – dead river’, a constant barrage for months, a tiny fraction of the people of Adelaide cared enough to come show support for the State’s viewpoint.
The friend claiming to see evidence all around from global warming is simply making a faith based assertion.
It is great when one sees evidence of God’s Providence all around their travels, not so great when one confabulates a global climate catastrophe based on faith.
Greenpeace, the multi-billion dollar international corporation, is simply defending its turf.
They are not used to having to defend their positions, since they have been able to fabricate an illusion of moral superiority and scientific backing, so they have to ignore the facts and attack the messenger.
Keep up the good work, Jennifer. Greenpeace is nasty parasite of a corporation, producing nothing but fear and corrupting things like the IPCC.
Most definitely a classic example of the age old political manouvre known as ‘shoot the messenger’.
It is starting to become highly amusing.
I have nothing but admiration for you Jen.
You have stuck to your message and mostly refused to get in that gutter with these people.
It must have been incredibly painful at times because some of those shots have been very personal.
It must have also been incredibly tempting to load up your gun.
Good for you, you nearly always reply with the actual message, supported by researched facts, no matter how much you are goaded by unsubstantiated personal attacks.
Jennifer:
In the past I’ve read many posts by you about the Murray Darling basin and related topics. You appeared to me to have something of a “bee in your bonnet”, perhaps even an obsession. Time and self-education lead me to conclude I was wrong in my more extreme conclusion, and that there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with bees in bonnets. I have a few myself, bird-shredders being one that particularly riles me. I apologise unreservedly for my ill-considered and premature views. I fell below my usual high standard of assessment and conclusion, something I expect, but often miss in others. Mea culpa.