Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Gone Fishing

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I am going to take some time out from this blog to try and complete a couple of projects that I’ve started, but am having trouble finishing. So there may be no new posts here for a while.

In the meantime you can subscribe for my irregular email updates here:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/subscribe/

And check the ‘Community Home’ page for updates from other readers with their nature photographs and more here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/category/community/

And here’s a picture I took of a fisher, a darter cormorant, in Kakadu National Park a few years ago.

Interestingly according to one account of life in the Lower Murray in South Australia one hundred years ago there was a bounty on cormorants (that are closely related to darters), with 34,000 taken in one year ostensibly because they ate too many fish [1].

*********
[1] Travels in Australasia, by Wandandian see page 301

26th July 1909 at Caurnamont, near Mannum

‘Birds were very scarce, though we saw one fine old spoonbill wading round the swamp and swinging his head from side to side in the peculiar fashion these birds have while feeding.

On the latter day, while out shooting, I picked up a freshly decapitated turtle of the kind called by the natives “emys,” and on meeting a fisherman enquired of him whether he had caught many, and why it was without a head.

He replied that the turtles were so destructive of fish spawn, that a scalp fee of one penny was paid on the head of each by the Government, and that he caught a good many from time to time.

On further enquiry, I found that in the past year the South Australian Government had paid over £600 in scalping fees to various people for 116,000 turtles and 34,000 cormorants, thus satisfactorily explaining why the cormorants are so shy, and look upon every man with suspicion; for when one contemplates what a hunting they must have in the course of the year to furnish such an enormous “bag,” it would be decidedly strange if they were at all otherwise. In spite of all this I saw hundreds of them on the Murray and lake waters, so that I am sure many must pour in from outside to take the place of those that are shot, and should this be the case it will be many years before their numbers are at all reduced, or the Government get anything like the full value for their money, or even justify its expenditure.’

[Back then Murray cod were plentiful despite the turtles and the cormorant though now there are no Murray cod in that stretch of river below Lock 1.]

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Pat O'Connor says

    Hi Jennifer,
    I think I am correct in saying that the “cormorant” is in fact a darter – related to the cormorants, but not the same.
    Cheers

  3. Max says

    Jennifer, I hope you enjoy the fishing and complete the projects that you are working on. Max

  5. cohenite says

    Well, you pick a topic luke; I see Manne has been making a fool of himself lately and the NZ NIWA case is at an interesting stage. There will be an article on Manne at OLO tommorrow and Jo is puting up something about NIWA shortly. You can’t swear at either of those sites so feel free to express your frustration here.

  7. Robert says

    Being the lazy blog-ranter that I am, mostly into sledging and rat-dirt, I only got as far as the abstract at the link.

    Ew. Talk about “so political” and “so tedious”.

    We get climate models spinning cheerfully with “fundamental thermodynamics”, we get future 2° to 3° warmer world (2 or 3, take your pick) – we even get a much-worse-than-we-thought scenario for the water cycle! That’s just the abstract!

    God’s truth. If civilisation doesn’t do something about Publish-or-Perish, there won’t be a bloody civilisation.

  8. cohenite says

    Ocean salinity; I saw the CSIRO PR release for luke’s linked paper some time ago; see:

    http://www.prodocom.com.au/html/actions/viewonline.php?ID=284204&cc=&loc=783a5c372d31315c74656d705c6175637369726f4d616361756c617943726169675c68746d6c656d61696c5c3238343230345c3836333237335c6174746163685c&email=harbs@iprimus.com.au

    It didn’t make sense but I got side-tracked, probably by some other distraction thrown up by luke, and didn’t look at it in detail; Willis has done the job for me:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/12/the-cure-for-anything-is-salt-water-sweat-tears-or-the-sea/

    All that money and resources and it’s still wall to wall crap.

  9. gavin says

    Maybe Jen has a project that can’t be finished, given her affair with the MDB bottom end.

    Offered to help by saying all us city folk depending on MDB catchment and health hold the biggest stick in the water carve up.

    Given common bird names, cormorant, darter, shag etc I consulted my “Field Guide to Australian Birds” by G Pizzey & F Knight.

    The darter is also known as the snake bird because of it’s neck and stiletto bill -1.2 m WS. The Great Cormorant our largest has a 1.5 m wing span. Little Black (cormorant or shag) 1m WS. Pied Cormorant (also yellow faced) hooked bill,1.5 m WS, MDB and other inland waters. Little Pied, smallest 90 cm WS and like the others is found just about everywhere round Aust. Black Faced (cormorant or shag) pied too and hard to pic in flight, 1 m WS, Bass Strait mostly.

    Note; plumage changes for all when breeding and some should be considered as SE Asian or Pacific birds.

  10. Luke says

    Cohenite anything from Wattsup is rat dirt and disinformation. Let’s not slum it with people who publish by press release. Hardly even a discussion of the paper.

  11. Ian Thomson says

    Gavin, you city folk and the brainless, aimless, short-sighted,vote buying politicians who you control, are actually the biggest problem faced by the MDB.
    I suppose I should include the ABC there too.
    Glad I am not some aquatic species relying on your lot for survival.
    Wish I had the power you wield in the Bush ,to wield in your cities.
    ‘Emus for Emu Plains’ ‘Unyoke the Yarra’ ‘Free the Hawkesbury’ ‘Unbuckle Boundary Bend’ ‘Clear the meadows at Meadowbank ‘ ‘Return the ACT to its natural state , by making it a real National Park’

    Going to bed to dream about it all.

  12. spangled drongo says

    The CSIRO whackos claim:

    “These changes suggest that arid regions have become drier and high rainfall regions have become wetter in response to observed global warming,”

    Why don’t they just look in their own backyard.

    Since the great climate shift of the ’70s when AGW “started”, the red centre has become an oasis in comparison to earlier years.

    But what can you expect from Lukwitz who casts dumb aspersions at a top website.

  13. Luke says

    Stupid tool SD – 1950 to 2000 samples 3 IPO regimes. Just moronic level comments from a Wattsy burger disinformation devotee.

  14. James Mayeau says

    “Salinity shifts in the ocean confirm climate and the global water cycle have changed.”

    Salinity shifted? Which way? What we have is an unquantified proving an unquantifiable.
    I’ll go one further. Instead of CSIRO charging people do read that paper, they should be forced to send everyone who wasted time reading it a hard copy, to be used for toilet paper.

    Something else that should be understood, a change in salinity means a change in the seas natural buffering system. More salts run off from the dry land making the oceans more alkaline. So is the water cycle changing, or is the ocean acidifying. GOT TO CHOOSE ONE. Can’t have it both ways.

  16. Rob H says

    Of course the scientific consensus of the time supported culling the turtles and cormorants. And whales. And American buffalo. And just about any animal in Africa.

  17. spangled drongo says

    Lukwitz as usual thinks the real world is in the modelling. If he had actually tried to produce anything in the dry centre of this country or even been aware of the problem he would have seen the big improvement since the ’70s.

    But I suppose when you worship warmist websites that only allow consensual opinions you get a little confused as to who are the real deniers.

  22. Neville says

    Spangled you have to laugh. All Hansen has done is to compare the biggest cool phase of the PDO 1945 to ’76 to the recent warm phase.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PDO.svg But we’re lucky that we didn’t live in the earlier periods over the last 1000 years.

    At that time the climate was so extreme that hundreds of years of cool and warm phases of the PDO are noted. This according to NOAA’s reconstruction.
    Thus the USA mega droughts that are well documented. Of course no fossil fuel burning humans to be seem anywhere.

  23. John Sayers says

    Neville – I’m not sure why they are surprised with the volcanic activity. The area is always active, I remember Mount Ngauruhoe erupting in the early 50s as I used to ski on Mount Ruapehu whilst Ngauruhoe was smoking away. White island has always been active.

    SD – the solar panel rebate scheme is a disaster – the rest of us are paying for these wankers to have solar panels that contribute sweet FA to the power generation of each State.

  30. Neville says

    There are probably many people who haven’t seen this transcript of Bolt’s very revealing interview with GAIA brain Flannery in March 2011.

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/mtr_today_march_25/#commentsmore

    Remember this bloke is the Gillard govt’s number one spokesman on AGW. He is afterall the Chief CC Commissioner and as such has to explain the mitigation of AGW to the Australia people.

    But here he admits that mitigation of AGW is a total fraud and con, in fact he states that even if the whole world stops emitting co2 today we would not see a change in the climate or temp for hundreds of years or PERHAPS A THOUSAND YEARS.

    Don’t forget only a few numbskull countries are introducing co2 taxes and the really big emitters are increasing co2 at an amazing rate.

  32. Ian Thomson says

    Hi Gavin,
    Think it means the State Govts have sold us out. Do not see one word in there about fixing the SA toilet blockage and giving them proper water.
    Just a lot of the usual political waffle. I think the useless NSW govt has just caved in .

  34. Debbie says

    Nothing to comment on Gavin,
    It’s just more of his continuous clueless waffle.
    I’m hoping you’re wrong Ian but I fear yoh may be right.
    I don’t think it’s the actual govt, I think it’s more likely the people and the mindset they have inherited from the previous mess.
    They could possibly learn some lessons from their QLD counter parts.
    Not much ‘possibility thinking’ coming from our mob.
    I was thinking yesterday that humans can be so technically amazing that we can set a goal like landing a craft like ‘curiosity’ on Mars, but refuse to look at technical solutions or set some achievable goals for our water woes.
    Go figure?

  35. bazza says

    Nev, what Flannery said was “If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years. ” What you said was “we would not see a change in the climate or temp “. You could at least quote correctly – why did you misquote?

  36. Minister for Truth says

    Re Debbies reference to Curiosity

    I find it amazing that after spending $2.5bn, and the development of some of the most complex technology and systems ever, in order to land a car sized contraption, with a bloody great thump on MARS, they still cant answer that most basic of questions.

    ….Is the cat dead?

    Now I know that ever present Lukey dude, will probably say that we will not know until a Peer Reviewed paper appears in some highly credible journal. And one that he and his fellow nobs approve of,(and only after suitable white anting of any rival evidence….said to be in prepration for submission by the nearby University of East Mars, Faculty of Marscats Preservation Division,

    So I guess the question will forever remain unanswered.

    OTOH if they had installed the standard Dead Cat Smellometer(DCS) on one leg of the lander that some have been calling for (funds permitting), and which was to have been automatically applied to all climate science AGW papers… then we would know by now.

    Putting that aside, what a stunning achievement for properly conducted science and project management.

    ..and what an absolute embarrassment Hansen must be to NASA now.

  38. Minister for Truth says

    “I just hope Allah is not giving nuts to the toothless here:” says the Spangled one.

    Well he wouldnt be doing that during day light hours at the moment, as its rammadammadan.

    ….followed in few weeks time by a giant sized pig out….teeth or no teeth.

  39. Luke says

    Of course landing a rover on Mars is a much simpler question. You can solid engineer many of the variables (to an extent). And you don’t have sceptic nong nongs and tea party tribalists saying Mars doesn’t exist or maybe the atmosphere is made of strawberry jelly.

    Minister for Truth thingy obviously has no idea of the depth and breadth of climate science literature. Sigh ….

  40. spangled drongo says

    MFT,

    On the one hand you have the toothless but nut-endowed, on the other you have the toothy but nutless.

    The latter are the ones who think they can “solid engineer” our energy systems based on half-baked renewables and GCM predictions.

    This has the added advantage of extracting nuts from the nut-endowed via a nutty govt.

  41. spangled drongo says

    I should have added that the toothy nutless have become so successfull at this “solid engineering” that we now are seeing increasing signs of toothless nutless, the toothy getting nuttier and the govt fast running out of nuts and needing more gifts from Allah.

    It is said that they may arrive by boat but we shouldn’t look them in the mouth.

  43. Minister for Truth says

    “Minister for Truth thingy obviously has no idea of the depth and breadth of climate science literature. Sigh ….”

    May be not, but one can smell dead rats, and even dead cats, a mile off, and the blatant activism by these so called authers of the deep science, eg Hansen et al, together with the incompetence and misrepresentation undertaken by the alarmanistas in general, doesnt need a Phd to flush out and expose…just common sense …a commodity in short supply with you types.

    I mean for gods sake, they…the creators of all this science at depth that you wank on about cant even manage/organise/normalise temperature records in a credible and defendable way….and its fundamental to the case…or I would have thought it was.

    As for the AAS boys club granting Flannery a Fellowship with his track record for unfounded made up alarmist b/s, based upon your self same science at depth… it just beggars belief.

    WTF do you people take us for.?

  45. Neville says

    Bazza you’re correct I’ve made a mistake. He didn’t mention climate but said the temp was not likely to drop for PERHAPS a 1000 years.

    From my angle I’m not saying his prediction is worth a row of beans, but he is the govt’s top appointed spokesman on AGW.
    Just proves the quality of ratbag we have hawking this silly message around OZ. I just wish every aussie knew that he thinks their efforts won’t make a scrap of difference to temp for a thousand years.

    Just to remind ourselves he based his forecast on every country ceasing emissions today and this isn’t happening.
    In fact non OECD emissions are soaring and therefore his prediction is a sick joke.

  46. bazza says

    Nev, you got it wrong again.It cant be coincidence.
    Why do you keep on distorting?
    You claimed “he thinks their efforts won’t make a scrap of difference to temp for a thousand years”.
    He said nothing of the kind,Who is the ratbag now – ?.

  47. spangled drongo says

    Did you hear the one about leading scientist, geophysicist and climategate investigator being interviewed by Auntie ABC with the usual kid gloves and Dorothy Dixers this morning?

    http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2012/08/former-head-of-shell-uk-lord-ronald-oxburgh.html?site=brisbane&program=612_morning

    In reply to a sceptic tweet Auntie comfortably reassured us that Lord Oxburgh was a true member of the House of Lords and a thoroughly consensual scientist.

  48. Neville says

    Bazza he said if the whole world stopped emitting co2 we wouldn’t see a drop in temp for perhaps a 1000 years.

    But most of the big emitters are powering on, so simple maths tells us it won’t make a scrap of difference.

    If he claims that the whole world must stop emitting to produce his prediction, then the current state of affairs means he must know it won’t make a scrap of difference.

    Simple logic and reason Bazza, so what don’t you understand about it?

  50. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Neville,
    “Simple logic and reason Bazza, so what don’t you understand about it?”

    Since it’s bazza you are asking, I’d say it would be this Simple logic and reason

  51. Minister for Truth says

    Yes Spangles the ABC went through their usual wet lettuce routine in questioning Little Lord Ronny and his rather inadequate Chairmanship of the his particular inquiry

    His version was very superficial and didnt examine the science or anything remotely difficult and he dispatched it very quickly, with a they were very naughty boys commentary.

    Sort of white wash one expects these days still from the political and academic elites

  54. spangled drongo says

    Yes gav, I’ve got insurance but, ya know what, the premiums are less than 1% of the risk.

    Not greater than 100%!

    I’d probably even cop Pascal’s wager but not oblivion.

  55. spangled drongo says

    BTW gav, you mustn’t’ve been paying attention during that pocket pissing comp between Attenborough and Williams.

    It’s hard to say who is the most climate scientifically ignorant of the two. Attenborough’s [like William’s] knowledge is woeful.

    He is still quoting the same ice-core errors that Al Gore quoted in AIT. I suspect even Williams was embarrased.

    Very sad to hear an old hero blithering.

  58. Debbie says

    Gavin?
    To what does Burke hold the key?
    Burke doesn’t even understand what ‘delivery constraint’ is.
    Burke thinks that all problems MDB will be solved by just adding water ….that he thinks he can manage out of thin air!
    Neither does he understand that the Murray is a RIVER …..not a channel.
    If it was a properly constructed, purpose built irrigation channel….it could be designed to deliver those ‘end of system flows’ from December to February…..but Gavin……it’s NOT is it?
    The ABC reporters have no more clue than he does.
    They all think Agriculture and the Environment use water like you do in the urban/industrial sector.
    Errrrr NOPE!
    So please….what key do you think he’s holding?
    The key to the door marked solution?
    It seems that you think that all will be solved by some cobbled together political compromise in the next few weeks.
    That would just be a POLITICAL outcome Gavin…..nothing to do with actually solving a technical problem!
    The actual PROBLEM, will still need solving even if Burke could achieve a POLITICAL outcome…..which is looking increasingly unlikely BTW.

  60. spangled drongo says

    Luke,

    WRT that CSIRO paper on change in wind speeds world wide they are a bit behind the times as well as being way out in their measurements.

    This all happened quickly with the 70s climate shift and during that time I was designing, building and racing, yachts. It became apparent that because of this drop in winds generally, you could win races with shorter waterlines and bigger sail areas rather than the opposite which were heavier with less horsepower.

    I sold a lot of plans and won a lot of races as a result.

    I’m not in that business these days but I think the CSIRO might find that things have changed recently.

    It’s called weather cycles. Y’know? Nat Var?

  61. Debbie says

    Really Gavin?
    Why does he have to make a decision soon? Is he facing an urgent problem? As in a REAL problem?
    And the loudest squawkers?
    That’s hilarious 🙂 🙂
    ROFL!!!
    What’s your definition of ‘squawker’?

  62. Neville says

    Murry Salby will give a talk on A PAC at 9 am this morning.

    Watch online here. http://www.a-pac.tv/ Probably repeated later, also on Foxtel chn 648.

    Conroy at present yapping on about the NBN.

  63. spangled drongo says

    “SD; .1% even 1 % is not much to pay for a scheme to reduce AGW on a global scale.”

    What’s that a percentage of gav? World GDP? For what area?

    Better give us some facts.

  65. Luke says

    SD – unanalytical comment. Just make something up on a global phenomenon. Maybe it was the advent of the mini-skirt.

    And so Neville – the relevance of that political comment on an enviro topic is what? Do you have anything positive in your life or just fulfilling the role of cranky old man.

  66. Robert says

    SD, it’s interesting what you say about winds post 70s. The climate changed markedly around 1979, and the change persisted, with the usual contradictions and variations. The climate changed markedly around 2007, so that wind patterns, real world effects of El Nino (2009, maybe 2012) etc are markedly different to previous decades.

    Our Green Betters of the Posh Left are great at noticing theories, movies, programs, policies, articles, papers, literature and studies about climate change…

    But they never notice climate change!

    Mind you, the same people are great at noticing theories, computations, taxation, pricing etc of CO2 emissions…

    But they are utterly indifferent to real CO2 emissions in real time! The subject – which ought to be central – does not even cross their minds. Which is the weirdest part of all this.

  67. spangled drongo says

    “SD – unanalytical comment. Just make something up on a global phenomenon. Maybe it was the advent of the mini-skirt.”

    Luke, you never cease to prove what a twit you are.

    This was a real world event that occurred as a result of the ’70s climate shift that people who had to deal with, commercially and physically, did so and quantified it much more accurately than your scientists with their selective smatterings of “data”.

    For many people to stick their necks out and gamble large amounts on weather and wind changes puts them way ahead of “scientists” that come along 30 years later with very second hand data.

    You reinforce the point that you and your mates simply need to be more aware and more honest.

  68. Luke says

    Bullshit SD and not even near the issue. Drivel. Maybe it was the invention of the internet?

    Salby from Neville’s more interesting link …. Salby is a clever guy but more bunk really. So he has compared a mean result of many models and ensembles with the single real world realisation. Any individual GCM realisation looks nothing like what he portrayed.

    On life in the 2000s – failed to mentioned aerosols.

    Trivially dealt with the research on sinks and sources, isotopic signatures in ocean and atmosphere. Really poor presentation.

    And as if modellers don’t think the physics of what they model – what rot !

  69. spangled drongo says

    Just open your eyes Lukwitz and notice what enormous increases there have been in sail areas in racing yachts in recent decades.

    Sail areas that haven’t been seen since the 1800s.

  70. bazza says

    Spangled had a link last night to an attempted job on the Hansen drought analysis using the Palmer Drought Severity Index. The attmept was as dumb as – if spngled had bothered to check that the PDSI has temperature as an input , so it is a bit circular using that in a relationship between drought and temperature. Even the intuitives that hang aroung here would work that out. So spangled bungled!

  71. Robert says

    The Intuitives! We’re an Irish Rock Group! So that’s our prob!

    No wonder spnlgled’s attmept went aroung circular. We’re dumb.

  74. spangled drongo says

    Been down the beach checking out the breeze.

    So Lukwitz, your earlier paper says the wind strength is falling but that last one says it is increasing during about the same time period.

    I think that sort of proves my point about scientists and the real world.

    Meantime you should take up sailing and find out which way the wind is really blowing.

    Bazza, if you’re so sure about that you should put your comment to Pat Michaels. He would be very interested in your logic.

  76. Robert says

    Deb, The Intuitives will probably need to play out-of-town redneck venues. Though if the hipsters decide we’re “ironic” or “retro” enough we might get a gig around Newtown. You never know.

    First single could be a cover of Light my Fire or Coalminer’s Daughter. I’ll approach Heartland for some sinister funding arrangements.

    On the subject of music, these were the only climate controllers around when I was young. I still love their work.

  77. spangled drongo says

    I’m talking about ocean winds. The only place where you get honest data.

    Bazza,

    Martin P. Hoerling, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who studies the causes of weather extremes, said he shared Dr. Hansen’s general concern about global warming. But he has in the past criticized Dr. Hansen for, in his view, exaggerating the connection between global warming and specific weather extremes. In an interview, he said he felt that Dr. Hansen had done so again.

    Dr. Hoerling has published research suggesting that the 2010 Russian heat wave was largely a consequence of natural climate variability, and a forthcoming study he carried out on the Texas drought of 2011 also says natural factors were the main cause.

    Dr. Hoerling contended that Dr. Hansen’s new paper confuses drought, caused primarily by a lack of rainfall, with heat waves.

    “This isn’t a serious science paper,” Dr. Hoerling said. “It’s mainly about perception, as indicated by the paper’s title. Perception is not a science.”

  78. spangled drongo says

    Even Muller:

    In an opinion article in the Washington Post, Hansen linked the findings to the “deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year.”

    Muller said that there is “not even a hint” that global warming can be specifically linked to those events.

  81. James Mayeau says

    Here’s a kinetic wind map of the United States, if you’re interested in that kind of thing. You can zoom in past the gales right down to the gusts, or if you’re in the mood all the way down to wiffs.

    Seems to me lack of wind would be a good thing. Fewer crops damaged. Easier Led Zeppelin come back tour. Fewer kites lost to trees. That is if it were true.

    Being that it’s a Luke link, chances are high that it’s Nintendo science, with little to no relation to anything in the corporeal realm.

  82. Luke says

    SD – are you serious – that is about as dickheaded as you can get. My golly. I wonder what else happens on humid days …. mmmmm dat’s a hard un’

  83. cohenite says

    luke, I had a look at the new Roderick wind, pan-evaporation, stilling paper; this is a vexed area; on the one hand AGW should lead to lessor wind activity since AGW affects cooler areas more than warmer and therefore temperature/energy gradients and winds should decline.

    A number of papers have shown this, including Roderick’s previous 2009 effort:

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00213.x/abstract

    However there is contradictory evidence by your good friends at the CSIRO:

    http://www.csiro.au/news/New-energy-in-search-for-future-wind

    I could go on, but the main consequence of wind/stilling is evaporation which, as measured by pan-evaporation is declining with flow-on consequences for atmospheric humidity which needs to be increasing to support AGW. The question is, has the purported extra radiative energy available from AGW gone into raising temperature or evaporation, since it cannot do both, as Franks has pointed out.

    If AGW is solely impacting on temperature and not throwing more water into the atmosphere than obviously that is a very important negative feedback and rebuts quite simply the mechanism for AGW.

  84. Luke says

    Very interesting Cohers. Don’t you think it’s all very interesting.

    And of course there’s some AGW import – nothing like calling fire down on your own position (mine) – the consequences missed by the goons here with the exception of your good self of course.

    Of course the stilling if it’s real is only over land. Which is why you need models you see 🙂 so many interactions.

    Surface roughness is a reason for reduction in land wind speeds.

    Anyway isn’t it all very interesting.

  85. Debbie says

    Luke!
    Of course the models are useful.
    However they are JUST a useful tool.
    They are being used incorrectly and inappropriately.

  86. Luke says

    Deb. Are you some sort of thought police. Really what a amazingly repetitive comment. Science needs some sort of instrument – tell me in an analytical sense how would you resolve such a complex problem with multiple drivers and feedbacks. Stick a regression line through some data …. oh I know you’re not interested in any implementation details. I forgot.

    The fact that you keep harping really says to me that you think they’re not useful. Furthermore I reckon you think a GCM is some sort of farm budget spreadsheet.

    Climate scientists KNOW they’re a tool which is why they’re using them. And the whole aspect of modelling is a continual loop between checking observations, attempts to describe mechanisms and reality against outputs.

  87. spangled drongo says

    Debbie is absolutely correct.

    Models are no substitute for data yet that is exactly what they are used for.

    To find out if there is any wind change over land the amount of data you would need over so many impossible-to-measure places would be phenomenal but models do it with very little data.

    This suits dickhead pontificators like Lukwitz who won’t get out of their comfort zones to collect data.

  88. Robert says

    There’s an interesting fact about recorded wind-speed, the sort of fact that could easily be converted to one of those ridiculous factoids containing the words “record”, “ever” and “unprecedented”. The reason I say “ridiculous” is that there have not been people standing around all over Antarctica constantly measuring wind-speed for the last few millennia. (The only way we know about Australia’s still standing Marble Bar sustained heat “record” is that people happened to be there, with acceptable measuring equipment, from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924.)

    The “record” that’s “set” here involves one spot on the windiest of continents. It’s interesting because it involves a daily average of wind-speed, not a cyclone or tornado peak, or a one minute “record” gust like the one in New Hampshire in 1934. Nobody has measured a faster daily average than the 174 km/h at Port Martin anchorage, Adélie Land.

    Since “extreme” is the new “hot”, an event like this could easily make its way into the Guardian or NYT as some kind of proof of something, with experts expressing their “concern”. You might say it isn’t so, but I’ve seen and read worse.

    However, like last February’s big freeze in Europe, the 1951 big wind at Port Martin won’t be causing any experts any “concern”.

  89. spangled drongo says

    It was cold enough here this am for frost but there wasn’t any because of the cold sou’westerly which, though it has a strong chill factor, actually warms the coldest areas by preventing stratification.

  90. bazza says

    Why does Robert set new records for prattling on about records like a broken record. He should get used to them. So what if a tree should fall, and no one to hear it. Maybe a new record means compared with what was recorded.

  95. Robert says

    Sorry, bazza, I went beyond my customary sarcasm and called you names. Be as snobbish as you like, and if you sometimes don’t make your meaning clear, that’s a common fault with us all.

    Here is the big, big problem with “records”: the period of record is often very short, and it is very seldom specified. That goes beyond shoddy to the outrageous, especially where climate is concerned. How often do alarmists resort to this tactic, while pretending to be analytical? A lot! It is very worrying that you do not seem to understand this, or find it of little concern.

    Here’s a site where they do something very unusual. Where possible, they state the length of record:

    http://wmo.asu.edu/

    Of course, no amount of specificity will make up for the paucity and superficiality of data. (See spangled at 8:39 am). If you don’t hear the trees fall, don’t tell me all about the forest. The only climate scientist is one who knows his science is very raw and, dare we say, unsettled.

    To think that people don’t use the words “record” and “unprecedented” in a highly manipulative way is to be very young…or to be very resistant to maturity.

  96. bazza says

    So Robert, what would you say about each of the four points following, given your perspective on records.
    1.”If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even.
    2.Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.
    3.A record daily high means that temperatures were warmer on a given day than on that same date throughout a weather station’s history.
    4.The authors used a quality control process to ensure the reliability of data from thousands of weather stations across the country, while looking at data over the past six decades to capture longer-term trends. (accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters)

  97. Luke says

    SD – imbecilic level of comment. There is not much point in data if you don’t know what it tells you is there. Clown.

    There is a whole feedback loop of hypothesise, gather data, analyse, model, evaluate – round and round. You’re clueless as to science matey.

  98. Debbie says

    Luke and Bazza,
    I apologise but the delicious irony in your last comments is causing me unbounded mirth!
    Broken record?
    Repetetive comments?
    That is truly hilarious.
    BTW Luke, I use modelling every single day and I am perfectly aware of their uses and their pitfalls.
    We can misuse them too.

  99. Robert says

    Bazza, I have no trouble believing in global or wide-ranging warming post 1980 (and pre-1950). I have no trouble believing that numerous records, in the literal sense, are broken continually in the USA, and increasingly in the last decade. Whether it is so or not, it’s not hard to believe.

    I have no trouble believing in trends, short and long term, and within trends there may be enhanced or lessened extremes, and overall rises and declines in general temp over decades.

    Assuming honesty and rigorous standards, I believe these things will be hard, but not impossible, to trace. Allowing for some inadequacy and trickiness, one can still get a picture. (For example, North America was a place of climatic extremes in the 1930s. China was the ultimate flood zone in the1930s. In the 1930s, Australia was still labouring mightily under very long term rain-deficit after the Fed drought, and the odd flood or cold wave didn’t help.)

    As to what I mean by inadequacy and trickiness, you might want to comb through Goddard or the countless postings on the subject on this site. You probably know what we think by now. You probably don’t agree.

    Lastly, I don’t believe or disbelieve in continued warming, nor do I believe or disbelieve in a new Dalton-style minimum. I know that the average does not exist, except as a handy mental concept – which is fine. Climate IS change. I firmly believe that nobody has a clue about the climate in ten years time.

    Wealth, nukes, dams and ultra-modern coal facilities will be useful in ten years time. I’m absolutely sure about that.

  100. spangled drongo says

    Lukwitz in full stride. Argumentum ad verecundiam. All mouth and trousers.

    If YOU don’t know what the data’s telling you, the answer’s simple:

    Model!

    Er..or adjust…or both.

    Or better still, learn how to read an instrument and use the raw stuff.

  105. Toby says

    As Dr. Roy Spencer points out in his book,

    “The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.”
    Thx for that link SD, the science is however settled and you should be chastised for providing yet another reason for why the climate may have changed that does not relate to co2. Egg on your face Luke?! co2 is the only possible cause unless you believe in fairies……( pretty much exactly what you had to say a few threads back, luke)….except for all the other possible causes. sigh………

  106. gavin says

    Following Robert; “There’s an interesting fact about recorded wind-speed, the sort of fact that could easily be converted to one of those ridiculous factoids containing the words “record”, “ever” and “unprecedented” etc.
    I decided it’s too easy to confuse any old writer’s “climate” discussions with the actual science. Then I noticed Deb’s reply to Luke and Bazza, “BTW Luke, I use modelling every single day and I am perfectly aware of their uses and their pitfalls”

    Imo; whats most needed here is a little respect for the tools climate scientists use so I hopefully found appropriate info on where we are at today and background

    “The upcoming Dynamical Core Model Intercomparison Project (DCMIP) and associated two-week summer school from 7/30/2012-8/10/2012 highlights the newest modeling techniques for global climate and weather models. Special attention is paid to non-hydrostatic global models and their dynamical cores that now emerge in the GCM community”

    https://www2.ucar.edu/for-staff/daily/calendar/2012-08-08/studies-solar-convection-zone-using-reduced-speed-sound-techniqu

    Using a key point, a sub re Switzerland cause a dear old lady from there had told us about the hanging ice changes she had observed from childhood, I searched for “L. Panziera” and found this string of articles at Wiley online

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.v137.661/issuetoc

    SD; there is a lot more to it than “learn how to read an instrument and use the raw stuff”. Lets say re all instruments, if it is not published by Wiley, then it’s not worth knowing.

  107. Debbie says

    So Gavin,
    Is Wiley a ‘Climate Scientist’?

    Here are some interesting questions for you:

    1. What is the relevant research qualification for a Climate Scientist?

    2. When was that qualification first bestowed?

    3. How many of the current “climate scientists” hold that qualification, and where and when did they receive it?

    4. How many universities have a chair in Climate Science?

    Modelling is definitely useful Gavin….I have no argument with that at all….I use it.
    It is NOT science however….it can be used by scientists …..and just like every other profession it can also be misused as well.
    I also think you are struggling with your definition of “Science”. You seem to be confusing it with “Scientists”.
    Scientists are just people Gavin….they’re usually very bright people…..but they’re just as fallible and just as vulnerable to undue influence as anyone else.
    They are also usually employed and are expected to do a job. The job description is what they must fulfil.
    You’re eternally attempting to use ‘Science’ and ‘Scientific modelling’ to argue for a ‘side’.
    By its very nature, science (as opposed to scientists) doesn’t take sides and is not ’employable’.
    It’s extra ordinarily easy to use modelling to argue for a side however….one day listening to a political debate in either the upper or lower house can demonstrate that fact quite easily.

  109. spangled drongo says

    Gav, you’re just talking about a great heap of unknowns. Compared with the relatively easy job of, for example, measuring SLR, they will likely never have full knowledge. When they can’t even get the knowns right, how can anyone have confidence in them getting the unknowns right.

    And then when their only way to get an answer is to start modelling sketchy unknowns you have to shake your head.

    Tossing a coin would probably be better. Or reading their horoscope.

    The easiest person to fool is yourself so stick to measuring the measurable and adjourn the adjustments.

  110. gavin says

    Shooting down over your back again Deb?

    Re SD’s latest blog slog,” Well, wadda ya know! Another new paper finds that climate models grossly under estimated cooling from clouds”.

    Well, I found this paper “Evaluation of Clouds and Precipitation in the ECHAM5 General Circulation Model Using CALIPSO and CloudSat Satellite Data” from Max Plank

    “Observations from Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) and CloudSat satellites are used to evaluate clouds and precipitation in the ECHAM5 general circulation model. Active lidar and radar instruments on board CALIPSO and CloudSat allow the vertical distribution of clouds and their optical properties to be studied on a global scale. To evaluate the clouds modeled by ECHAM5 with CALIPSO and CloudSat, the lidar and radar satellite simulators of the Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project’s Observation Simulator Package are used. Comparison of ECHAM5 with CALIPSO and CloudSat found large-scale features resolved by the model, such as the Hadley circulation, are captured well. The lidar simulator demonstrated ECHAM5 overestimates the amount of high-level clouds, particularly optically thin clouds. High-altitude clouds in ECHAM5 consistently produced greater lidar scattering ratios compared with CALIPSO. Consequently, the lidar signal in ECHAM5 frequently attenuated high in the atmosphere. The large scattering ratios were due to an underestimation of effective ice crystal radii in ECHAM5. Doubling the effective ice crystal radii improved the scattering ratios and frequency of attenuation. Additionally, doubling the effective ice crystal radii improved the detection of ECHAM5’s highest-level clouds by the radar simulator, in better agreement with CloudSat. ECHAM5 was also shown to significantly underestimate midlevel clouds and (sub)tropical low-level clouds. The low-level clouds produced were consistently perceived by the lidar simulator as too optically thick. The radar simulator demonstrated ECHAM5 overestimates the frequency of precipitation, yet underestimates its intensity compared with CloudSat observations. These findings imply compensating mechanisms in ECHAM5 balance out the radiative imbalance caused by incorrect optical properties of clouds and consistently large hydrometeors in the atmosphere” July 2012.

    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00347.1

    You see Deb, there is climate technical stuff going on all the time and you don’t have to be involved with the hush conspiracy driven by one or two one eyed bloggers.

  112. Debbie says

    A website Gavin?
    So we have to have a little respect for the tools that scientists use?
    Climate technical stuff?
    Huh? ?
    Sorry . . . non comprehendo.
    I suppose you meant to make a point, but can’t find it.

  113. gavin says

    Much more than a website Deb;

    “Through the 20th century, the company expanded its publishing activities business, the sciences, and higher education. Since the establishment of the Nobel Prize in 1901, Wiley and its acquired companies have published the works of more than 450 Nobel Laureates, in every category in which the prize is awarded”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wiley_%26_Sons

    The Wiley group is perhaps the largest technical publisher on just about everything we do but so often big note bloggers seem to be completely unaware of this massive reference.

  114. James Mayeau says

    Like the dolphin who guides you
    You bring us beside you
    To light up the darkness and show us the way
    For though we are strangers in your silent world
    To live on the land we must learn from the sea
    To be true as the tide
    And free as the wind-swell
    Joyful and loving in letting it be

    Aye, Calypso, the places you’ve been to
    The things that you’ve shown us
    The stories you tell
    Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit
    The men who have served you
    So long and so well

    Oops! Wait a minute. What I read here is Calipso doesn’t penetrate low level clouds either (nice visual presentation of what I’m talking about at that link). So I’m wondering how it can be used as a justification for re-calibrating the cloud penetration of a climate model, even going so far as demanding ice crystals to behave as the modeler would like?

  115. spangled drongo says

    Deb, the point gav was trying to make is that when you mix many wrongs, unknowns, inconsistencies etc, together, there’s a fair chance you will get the right answer.

    How’s your horoscope today?

  118. Debbie says

    SD,
    Is the ‘right answer’ the same as the ‘predetermined answer’? 🙂

    Gavin….please get this very clear….I have NO PROBLEM with smart technologies OR with the correct use of modelling…..NONE!
    I am a HUGE fan of science and what it has done for us all and what it can offer.
    I am NOT a fan of the way this particular branch of science has been politically hijacked.

    Much of what BoM and other meteorology organisations do is useful and helpful….this ‘climate technical stuff’ ….to use your terminology….is something else entirely!
    It is NOT ‘climate technical stuff’ it is a political misuse of data based on some very, very shaky assumptions…..not least being the way C02 performs when it is in in the ‘physical’ form of a trace gas in the atmosphere!

    I know the idea of AGW is ‘plausible’….and there is supporting evidence that on a local scale (or the UHI factor) that humans do have influence….but DUH!….we already knew that didn’t we? That’s always been the case all the way back to our cave man days.
    Us humans naturally work towards improving and enhancing our immediate environment….and we sometimes ‘stuff up’ and need to fix those mistakes.
    Your ‘climate technical stuff’ is attempting to prove that the human influence is GLOBAL and a negative impact that overides natural checks and balances and, very strangely, that it can be ‘managed’ on some type of calendar basis?
    And every single time Gavin…the ‘solution’ to all these problems is exactly the same solution…..the ‘climate technical stuff’ that is proving all this ‘alarming’ stuff….always concludes with the URGENT NEED for exactly the same strategy!
    That is NOT a sensible ‘insurance’ or ‘risk management’ strategy!

  119. Neville says

    So tell us Gav how can we manage the climate? What would you do first and how much would your actions lower the temp?

  120. Debbie says

    And PS Gavin,
    Our ABC said it snowed in Canberra on Wednesday….I guess you must now be able to see snow from the ACT?
    Or did the ABC get it wrong?
    Seems that your ‘hunch’ about the ACT July weather wasn’t proving anything much at all either in the ACT or around the globe?
    (which is not the same as climate you know especially since the accepted yearly calendar range for the winter season is June – August!) ….and a winter season is still only weather Gavin….not climate!
    Or maybe the ABC was incorrect?

  121. gavin says

    Deb; you could focus on some of the info in my links instead of beating round the bush.

    Nev; this is the can do age but only a few will get off the planet. The rest of us need to stay and fix it up and that should include you. Your questions look silly when given that task but I will say there is at least 200 years of fixing to do starting now.

    Btw Deb, that risk management philosophy came sometime after I began using Wiley texts everyday. Knowledge comes before strategy in my book.

  122. Johnathan Wilkes says

    gav
    ” planet..to stay and fix it up”

    Looks fine to me. Could do with a bit of warmth at the moment though!

  123. bazza says

    “I know the idea of AGW is ‘plausible’ ” from Debbie at 9:25 am. I wonder what evidence would be needed to show it was not plausible. ?

  124. spangled drongo says

    Been a soccer grand dad this morning. Hard work.

    Neville, can’t report the facts on the missing links in that Gillard/Wilson/S&G scandal.

    There would only be about 95% of Australians interested.

    Gav, some of us sceptics have spent their whole lives fixing fixing the planet but I never cease to marvel at how the catastros are the mindless consumers who, like their lefty, watermelon govts, need the sceptics to regularly take charge and fix their ever-increasing debt levels so they can have another crack at spending, wasting, over-regulating and generally digging an even bigger economic black hole.

    During the down-time they recharge their batteries by continually abusing the Campbell Newmans who have the courage to try and fix their mess.

  125. spangled drongo says

    “I wonder what evidence would be needed to show it was not plausible. ?”

    Bazza, I know this is a DD but I’ll bite. If we’ve had no warming for the last 15 years with exponential ACO2 increases, how long should this continue before you of the warming persuasion are persuaded otherwise?

  127. Robert says

    A family member flew over Qld during the week. I think he’s a bit Green these days, like a lot of well-to-do inner-city people. He talked about the gouging of what seemed to be good farmland and of the sheer visibility of coal mining. I didn’t argue, because I agreed to a great extent.

    What has happened to Conservation? It has been swallowed up by Environmentalism, a mass neurosis that likes any amount of waste and wreckage in the name of dogmatic purity. While monkish pseudo-scientists are busily spinning the post 18th century sea-level rises into a modern catastrophe, and killing temp and weather history as quick as they find it, we waste human resources, land, water, minerals, food, and money like the worst of the collectivist states of last century. Our Green Betters will do to the physical world what our Political Betters did to the human masses of Asia and Eastern Europe (and to the physical world!).

    Environmentalists, your masks are slipping. Your true faces are red and angry, with that familiar elitist sneer.

  128. Debbie says

    Bazza,
    ROFL!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
    I am laughing so hard at your comment there are tears streaming down my face. 🙂
    That was an absolute classic case of missing the point.
    On what planet (other than on planet Bazza) has anybody EVER said that Human influence (either positive or negative) on environment and/or climate is NOT plausible?
    You are very, very funny Bazza.
    ROFL 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

  131. Debbie says

    BTW Bazza I most definitely wrote the IDEA of AGW.
    I even offered WHY it was a plausible IDEA.
    Capitals necessary to help you understand the actual point.

  132. spangled drongo says

    gav and bazza,

    If a climate/computer scientist is uncertain and ignorant enough then mere probabilities are as good as facts.

    With all the unknowns and uncertainties in climatology do you really think the results are believable?

    That you shouldn’t be sceptical?

  133. Neville says

    Gav the very last thing we should do is introduce a co2 tax. We should only commit to adaptation to future problems whether it be AGW or anything else.

    This decision is easy to understand because our reduction of 5% of emissions by 2020 is a pathetic joke that will cost billions for a zero return.

    We should also be trying to invest some of our scarce (now) borrowed funds on new technology, innovation and new inventions etc, with the hope that one day we may have some new cheap way of producing some of our energy.

  134. Debbie says

    And Gavin,
    with all due respect for current technologies, I very much suspect that in 200 years our current tecchie toys will look very amusing to those in the future.
    We can only sensibly deal with what we have now.

  136. Debbie says

    Knowledge comes before strategy?
    That sounds eminently sensible.
    But apparently in this particular case we have it completely back to front.
    The strategy is being rammed down our throats and it is the SAME strategy no matter what the problem.
    Apparently the ‘knowledge’ is ‘settled’.
    Apparently there is only ONE risk management strategy and it will even prevent people getting cranky in traffic jams in Western Sydney.

  139. Neville says

    Let’s have a look at real co2 emissions over the last 20 years.

    http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8&cid=CG6,CG5,&syid=1990&eyid=2010&unit=MMTCD

    In 1990 OECD countries emissions = 11.6 bn tonnes Non OECD countries =10 bn tonnes.

    In 2000 OECD ” ” ” =13.1 bn tonnes Non OECD ” ” ” = 10.6 bn tonnes

    In 2010 OECD ” ” ” = 13.0 bn tonnes Non OECD ” ” ” = 18.8 bn tonnes.

    Since 1990 OECD emissions have increased by 1.4 bn tonnes pa and NON OECD emissions have increased by 8.8 bn tonnes pa.

    Of course emissions have rapidly soared in China and India so much since 2000 that the tonnage has increased by 8.2 bn tonnes pa in just 10 years.

    How OZ can introduce a co2 tax under these conditions and claim we are ” tackling CC or taking action on CC ” is just about the most moronic statements of our time.

    Meanwhile the USA is not increasing emissions much at all and will continue to do so with increased use of Gas instead of coal etc.

    In fact the OECD will be almost flatling their emissions for decades and the non OECD emissions will continue to soar.

  141. Robert says

    Perhaps the carbon tax could help fund a clean, green war against all those Asian emitters. More revenues for our war to save the planet might be obtained by exports of coal to…well, to all those Asian emitters.

  143. bazza says

    Debbie, I agree you ” most definitely wrote the IDEA of AGW” as plausible. The G is for global. You then used UHI as an example. You are not serious?. Any other examples of plausability?

  146. Debbie says

    Dear Bazza,
    Thankyou so much for expaining the G in the acronym AGW. Thank goodness we have such smart people like you around to explain these things….should you also maybe point out to everyone that A stands for Anthropegenal (can’t be bothered to check spelling but synonym is HUMAN) and W stands for warming?
    I can only suggest you reread my post.
    You may discover that the point was that UHI …which DOES have supporting evidence (like DUH!!!!!!!!!!and DOUBLE DUH!!!!!)… is what has prompted the plausibile IDEA (or if you like theory or hypothesis) of the GLOBAL….which DOES NOT have supporting evidence!!!!
    The emerging real time data is NOT supporting the IDEA of the G bit in AGW.
    Get it?
    May I respectfully suggest that if you read people’s posts in the ‘spirit’ they are offered rather than trying to be some sort of smart alec tactician… one day I may be able to actually take you seriously….at the moment however, I still find you very, very funny…..in an ironically amusing context.
    kind regards 🙂
    Debbie

  148. Debbie says

    Thanks for that link Spangled,
    The point I tried to make, is made very clearly here by Patrick Moore:

    ‘The global average temperature has now been flat for the past 15 years, as all the while CO2 emissions have continued to increase. There are only 2 possible explanations for, either there is some equally powerful natural factor that is suppressing the warming that should be caused by CO2, or CO2 is only a minor contributor to warming in the first place.’

    I would also insert ‘Human produced’ in front of those C02s.

  149. bazza says

    So Debbie,you are now saying the idea of AGW is not plausible. You and spangled can go on mangling the evidence. You deserve each other. Anybody still hanging on to that 15 year story as evidence of anything other than a rising trend with mostly natural variability from record El Nino at the start and near record La Nina at the end has long ago crossed the line from sceptic to denialist and you would have to be a mug to bother trying to understand where they are coming from.

  150. spangled drongo says

    “You and spangled can go on mangling the evidence.”

    Well bazza, please give us your unmangled evidence.

    I’ve shown you the temp/CO2 chart for the last 350 years. That doesn’t correlate so as Dr Patrick Moore says there has to be something else and we are all aware that a few things can produce warming, both man made and natural, so what about giving us your take on why it’s happening and for what reason.

    And we won’t mind if you delete the desperate denier declamations. ☺

  151. Neville says

    So why aren’t bazza, Luke and Gav over in Asia demonstrating against the really big future ( and present) emitters?

    The OECD countries are emitting little new emissions and will virtually flatline for decades. The really big emitters China India etc are the only big emitters until 2035 at least.

    The OECD could stop emitting today and it would hardly make a scrap of difference to future co2 emissions for decades.

    Very easy, simple maths but these real deniers just don’t seem to understand.

  152. Debbie says

    No Bazza,
    I most definitely stated that due to evidence re UHI it WAS plausible. UHI is entirely supported by evidence, but it does not appear that it successfully extrapolates to that G bit in AGW. Not from the A bit that produces C02 anyway.
    I suggest that calling people names is not helping my current opinion of you.
    Your comment re el nino actually supports part of what Patrick Moore says: the natural factor bit, which you call natural variability.
    You need to explain that ‘evidence of a rising trend’ phrase because to me you haven’t done anything other than state the obvious.
    Maybe I have missed something?

  153. spangled drongo says

    As Pielke Jr says:

    “For years — decades, even — science has shown convincingly that human activities have an impact on the planet. That impact includes but is not limited to carbon dioxide. We are indeed running risks with the future climate through the unmitigated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and none of the schemes attempted so far has made even a dent in the problem. While the climate wars will go on, characterized by a poisonous mix of dodgy science, personal attacks, and partisan warfare, the good news is that progress can yet be made outside of this battle.

    The key to securing action on climate change may be to break the problem into more manageable parts.”

    As Tom Fuller says, we can solve this by attacking existing problems with doable, not faith-based, solutions.

    And even as James Hansen says, we can do it with gen 4 nuclear power.

  154. Debbie says

    Apology!
    I said IS but really meant WAS.
    However, IS is still OK.
    In theory it IS plausible because of UHI. But, the emerging real time data, which must be the judge, is clearly indicating the theory is not anywhere near ‘setlled’.
    Gotta ask why we aren’t focusing on mitigating UHI?

  156. Luke says

    Yes the damage from drought, floods, cyclones, tornadoes, heatwaves, cold outbreaks and hail has damaged trillions of dollars of agriculture, infrastructure and costs millions of lives.

  157. Neville says

    The mitigation of AGW is a total fraud and con. Lomborg’s economic team calculated that if the Kyoto scheme was followed to the letter it would only postpone AGW by 5 years before the year 2100.

    That is it would have the same result in 2095 instead of 2100. This would cost countless trillions $ for at least ninety years for almost nil return.

    The numbers are now in for the last 21 years and the results show the same useless return on investment and almost zero change.

    In 1990 human co2 emissions totalled 21.6 bn tonnes pa. By 2010 this had increased to 31.8 bn tonnes or an increase of 10.2 bn tonnes pa.

    But the OECD emissions only added an extra 1.4 bn tonnes pa of that total with the extra 8.8 bn tonnes pa emitted by non OECD countries.

    So if every OECD country signed up to Kyoto the change would have made little difference. For decades to come that difference will be much less because nearly all the increased co2 is now produced by the non OECD.

  158. Neville says

    Well Luke tell us how to fix all those problems. We’re not asking you to sweat blood or swing a pick and shovel, so just give us the answer.

    Should be easy for someone who has thought about this problem ? for some time.

  159. Debbie says

    Luke,
    droughts, floods etc are natural occurences.
    They certainly do some damage, no argument there.
    But? Relevance?
    Did humans cause these things to happen?
    Was it because of slight warming, either from humans or otherwise?
    Because that was SD’S question. His link was relevant to the posed question.

  160. spangled drongo says

    “Yes the damage from drought, floods, cyclones, tornadoes, heatwaves, cold outbreaks and hail has damaged trillions of dollars of agriculture, infrastructure and costs millions of lives.”

    Do you have any evidence that the preceeding 250 years of cooler weather was any better?

    Not to forget that the lower technology of that earlier period made average life harder and misfortune more deadly.

    As cohenite has pointed out to you on numerous occasions, warming reduces the world’s temperature gradient which reduces extreme weather.

  161. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Comment from: Luke August 12th, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    quote: SD “cost/benefits of the last 250 years ”

    Luke said:

    “Yes the damage from drought, floods, cyclones, tornadoes, heatwaves, cold outbreaks and hail has damaged trillions of dollars of agriculture, infrastructure and costs millions of lives.”

    Don’t much care one way or other Luke, but do you seriously believe what you just said?
    Taking into account the part of the question especially “last 250 years”?

    Are you saying that a measly 0.5C if that, of temperature change has changed the climate/weather patterns? (don’t even want to go into the question of “global” average whatever that means? when it’s cold in one part of the world and hot in an other)
    Luke your politics is clouding your mind or you are just too stubborn to admit that you were wrong.

  164. Robert says

    It’s true! In the 18th and 19th centuries far fewer people died directly from climate disasters. You had to be one of the elite who made it past birth, childhood, pregnancy, accidents, infection and starvation. The abundant droughts, floods, cyclones, tornadoes, heatwaves, cold outbreaks and hail couldn’t kill you when you were already dead.

    The cost of these disasters was far less, since there were far fewer people (see above) and far less infrastructure. True, the Great Hurricane of 1780 was more lethal than any Atlantic event since…but it was huge! And while Irene in 2011 was bad, let’s hope New York and Long Island don’t cop a repeat of 1821’s monster. Much of Manhattan was flooded, Battery Park copped a four metre storm surge in just one hour.

    Fortunately for the Left Coast of the US, only the one Pacific hurricane has arrived there in force, at least in the historical era. But that was in 1858, so no Prius dealerships were damaged. Not a patch on Galveston, 1900, or Miami 1926.

    Closer to home, and getting back into the 19th century, by a whisker, Australia’s own Mahina would NOT want to be repeated in a more populous Qld. To borrow a fave expression of warmists, Mahina claims a “world record” for the height of its storm surge that few will dispute. Dolphins and other fish were reported found on top of 15 metre cliffs.

    Of course, Katrina, 280 km/h and 902 mbar, was a real horror. If things aren’t worse than we thought, they’re not better either!

  165. spangled drongo says

    Neville,

    And we wondered why the HSU scandal got stymied. If we started investigating union corruption it would go all the way up.

    Can they get a big enough rug to sweep all this under?

  166. gavin says

    Anybody who continuously quotes WUWT or jono should be dismissed as radical right with extremely limited vision. Also anyone who uses UHI to scuttle out backwards from responsibility is another NIMBY. Its a furphy of the first order too.

    Today I met a regular acquaintance who has just returned from a big trip overseas. All he could say to me was how hot they were in the USA. Las Vegas topped 46C.

    http://www.8newsnow.com/story/19231224/heat

    Later; when a Liberal Candidate walked up my drive, we had a chat about what he stood for and it didn’t include AGW. Typical party line, so I advised him on his bad breath and the need to listen to all potential constituents.

  167. Johnathan Wilkes says

    gav

    I remember, part of a line in the movie “The Alamo” when the commander I think colonel Travis said to the hillbilly ex house of rep. (can’t recall his name) “please no more of your homespun wisdom and anecdotes” or something along those lines.

    I wish you did the same.
    It is getting tiresome.
    How come no labor or liberal or greeny candidate ever walks up our path? It’s a good path, I assure you, they wouldn’t trip or anything.

    I wouldn’t even tell them they have bad breath, suppose I have too much “kulcha” and manners?

  168. spangled drongo says

    gav, you’re not telling us it gets hot in the US in summer? Wow! Hastabe AGW.

    Try some facts for a change:

    “Anthony Watts has done it again and given the big boys a bloody nose – this time over the US temperature record.

    NOAA announced today:

    The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during July was 77.6°F, 3.3°F above the 20th century average, marking the hottest July and the hottest month on record for the nation. The previous warmest July for the nation was July 1936 when the average U.S. temperature was 77.4°F. The warm July temperatures contributed to a record-warm first seven months of the year and the warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895.

    Anthony had always wondered why NOAA didn’t provide data from the brand-spanking-new United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN). So he did it himself.
    The difference is startling.

    Using the old network, NOAA says the USA Average Temperature for July 2012 is: 77.6°F

    Using the new NOAA USCRN data, the USA Average Temperature for July 2012 is: 75.5°F

    The modern USCRN is 2.1°F cooler than the old problematic network.

    It was no high record at all. To finish, Anthony delivers a funny, blistering rebuke.

    NOAA never mentions this new pristine USCRN network in any press releases on climate records or trends, nor do they calculate and display a CONUS value for it. Now we know why. The new “pristine” data it produces is just way too cool for them.”

    Try shooting the message instead instead of the messenger.

    It’s nearly as rude as telling someone they have bad breath.

  170. spangled drongo says

    gav, pay attention. See my comment at 8.46pm.

    Sorry to disappoint but that 77.6 F is wrong.

    NOAA’s correct temp is 75.5 F.

    1.9 F cooler than July 1936.

  171. Robert says

    Hot in Vegas? I can believe it. This particular big heat is widespread, and breaking records all up and down the record shop. Of course, many records stand and many are from the unmentionable decade.

    The census bureau reported 12,183 deaths for the July heatwave of 1936 (more severe in the middle of the continent than 2012, but with cooler periphery).

    That blew away the 8,851 deaths for July 1934. The corresponding week in 1935 only killed 7,435, still…

    1931 had lethal heatwaves, but it had lethal everything. From Europe, to North America, from China to Australia, people were getting chilled, baked, frozen or flooded. Just as well they didn’t have to worry about climate disruption or extreme weather events!

    By the way, France’s toll from the 2003 heat wave was well over 14,000. Though many deaths were due to so many elderly left alone in August, the heat was stupendous for some parts: 40C for seven days in Auxerre. So, like I said in my previous comment, things may not be worse than we thought, but they’re certainly no better!

    It’s a naughty world. We need lots of appliances, a/c, heating, dams etc to live well in it. (For the Fairfax/ABC set, by “we” I mean “everybody”.)

  172. Luke says

    Johnathon – I’m just using the principles of drongoist science which makes this blog infamous.

    What I have said is true. Now you surely don’t want to engage in a science discussion of attribution do you. This blog runs on straight correlation. Hot, cold, dry, wet – we’ll take any old iron as evidence.

    It’s raw data. it’s occurred, there’s a correlation, so that’s that !

    Funny that Jen and Jo have run the Gillard politics isn’t it. The previous rule was enviro-politics only – nothing off topic. Just another right wing front group though really.

  174. Debbie says

    Gavin,
    According to the definitions of Luke and others, that is clearly wiggle watching and you are also using the principles of drongoist science. Or if you like, that is just weather. Also Gavin, SURELY you’re not denying UHI are you?
    Luke & Bazza
    I note the name calling.
    Right wing front group? Ayn Rand? Enviro politics?
    That is actually funny!
    You are making it sound like this has more to do with ‘real politics’ rather than ‘real science’.
    Surely not?

  175. spangled drongo says

    The Gillard politics are geting more extreme and ridiculous by the day which essentially speaks to the cred of all her politics. So they are completely relevant.

    The AGW scam is so much a part of this lefty lunacy. All oportunistic subterfuge in the same boat.

    As in unwanted boat arrivals.

  176. Neville says

    Here’s more interesting facts for the real deniers. You claim it’s all about human co2 emissions, well look at this.

    OECD countries emissions in 1990 11.6 bn tonnes co2 pa increasing to 13 bn tonnes co2 pa in 2010. An increase of 1.4 bn tonnes pa co2 over 21 years.

    The non OECD emissions increased by 8.8 bn tonnes pa over that 21 year period.

    But the co2 emissions from the non OECD increased by 1.7 bn tonnes pa in just twelve months from 2009 17.1bn tonnes co2 pa to 2010 18.8bn tonnes co2 pa.

    Thats 0.3 bn tonnes more than the OECD countries increased by over the previous 21 years.
    Now that’s what you’d call an increase in co2, something like super soaring I’d say.

    BTW China alone increased emissions of co2 from 2009 to 2010 by 1.1 bn tonnes pa. When will you deniers wake up to your fraud and con of AGW mitigation?

    Some say that science is maths, well there’s the numbers. Time the real deniers resorted to simple kindy maths and worked it out for themslves.

  177. bazza says

    Spangled wants to get disentangled from the denialist tag, and he can be a born again sceptic in my book if he could find some odd and silly things about the wattsup link he offered to shootdown AGW. ( It was the shonky central England temp and CO2 comparison, 12:20pm on 11th). I wrongly accused him of being as one with Debbie. Wrong. SD once said he believed climate sensitivity was about one. Deb must believe it is zero if AGW does not exist (killed by UHI, she believes. That will get her back on the caps key. She should ask Jonathan Livingstone where is the bold key. What next?).
    I don’t mess around with peoples beliefs so what can I say. What I do mess with are schlock jocks putting up stuff to mislead the innocent who don’t have their sophistication ( only in rare cases) or their sophistry. Anybody who puts up a bit of so called evidence that is just about a bit of time or space and uses that in isolation from the relevant evidence is not a sceptic and I will call them what I like.

  178. spangled drongo says

    If bazza [let’s have a third person conversation] would only supply a little evidence himself to support his argument then we would all know better what he is talking about but just calling well established data “shonky” and not supplying any of his own is itself pretty shonky.

    If bazza could bring himself to look at the bigger picture he might realise that there is very little in climate science that has been quantified, so the people who are in denial are the ones that refuse to accept the raw data that’s out there.

    Some of that already-quantified big picture data gives very good reason for scepticism:

    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/easterbrook_fig5.jpg

    Is this data too raw for our resident catastros to accept?

    Should it be denied?

  179. Debbie says

    Bazza,
    You are truly hilarious.
    Never mind SD
    Bazza claimed at an earlier post that to put it simply the absence of evidence does not mean that the evidence is absent or something similar!.
    I guess that means he doesn’t have to answer any genuine direct questions about evidence.
    He is trying hard to explain that he stands on the moral high ground and he is protecting the innocent.
    I’m a little unclear what or whom he is protecting the innocent from?
    It seems they need protecting from people like me who hasn’t bothered to find out how to use the BOLD option at this site and just uses CAPITALS instead. 🙂
    That makes me a serious threat to the innocent you know.
    He also claims that I wrote that UHI kills AGW.
    How deliciously ironic Bazza.
    You really are very very funny.
    I am a farmer, a business owner, self employed, a wife, a mother, a daughter/daughter in law an aunty, a sister and a sister in law, a community volunteer, I have 3 university degrees, my neck is probably the same colour as yours and most importantly I work closely with my environment and I care very deeply about it.
    I am also a swinging voter. I vote on ‘policy’ not politics or my opinion of politicians.
    Your ridiculous attempts to call me silly moral names is getting funnier and funnier. You now have a list of my primary name tags. You are welcome to call me one or a combination of those any time you please.
    How would you define yourself Bazza, and just out of interest, is Bazza really your name?
    Of course you could just as easily ask and answer questions about the evidence rather than making sneering personal comments and repetetive and hilarious attempts at ‘shooting the messenger’.

  180. bazza says

    Deb, impressive and can I predict your 3 degrees include a bit of stats 101 as well as semantics 101 because you want to know what I meant by rising trend. I meant a trend that is rising – the same as when I tried to engage you a while ago. On 21st MarchI wrote” Deb set the tone with her opening gambit “I have to giggle at the graph that shows the lack of correlation between C02 levels and temp”. Deb, only read on if you have got over your giggling about those pesky periods when the temperature graph intermittently not ever rising like the CO2 one with the wiggles. Not funny for the victims, but they were periods dominated by La Ninas as you well know. “ quote ends.
    You were not able to engage on that point so you went off on some other random tack. I suppose you would not need to bother if you find Arrhenius erroneus.

  183. Debbie says

    What victims Bazza?
    If I recall correctly you tried to imply I was a victim of AGW. I was certainly affected by natural variability. They are not the same thing are they?
    Natural variability and seasonal extremes do create problems Bazza. I have never claimed otherwise. There is no evidence that says those things are caused by AGW. So in that particular sense we must have been furiously agreeing with each other?
    I also recall your attempt at engagement was a refusal to answer a very simple question and a propensity to make a deal and then immediately break it.
    BTW your prediction was incorrect re university degrees. All of them are way beyond 101( including the stats one) I also note that you continuously imply that you have superior knowledge, is that related to your education and your occupation?
    You have often attempted to sneer at mine. It isn’t achieving anything BTW, other than making me laugh at you. I find that habit of yours increasingly hilarious.
    I also forgot to mention that I don’t drink much tea, I prefer coffee and tweed coats don’t suit me so I don’t wear them.
    I do notice however that you are still claiming that I lack empathy for someone or something? It is very unclear.
    Who is/are these poor victims of AGW Bazza? Who is it that you are protecting? How are you protecting them? What is the strategy and the policy? How are you going to make it better for them?

  185. Debbie says

    ROFL!
    🙂 🙂 🙂
    Nice freudian slip there Toby.
    If Toby is correct Bazza and the part in engagement where you would need to answer questions is above you I sincerely apologise.

  186. Larry Fields says

    It’s shameless self-promotion time again.

    Larry’s Tetrahedron Puzzle

    Here’s a link to the article at Hubpages.
    http://tinyurl.com/8nocdg9

    Summary:
    Can you find the distance from the base of a Regular Tetrahedron to its center, if you know the height of this 3D figure? This article also describes an important tetrahedron in the world of chemistry, as well as the Cavalieri Principle.

  187. spangled drongo says

    Fascinating puzzle Larry. You would initially think it would be 0.5 meters but naturally if it contains 4 smaller tetrahedra with the same base area [and it would] then the height from base to centre is 0.25 meters.

    I seem to remember that tetrahedra are the most roll-resistant shape you can construct and are used as army tank barriers.

  188. spangled drongo says

    Sorry, the above should read: tetrahedra are the most roll-resistant shape of any equal sided shape you can construct…

  189. Luke says

    Bazza – how can Debbie have 3 uni degrees and be so thick. Arts grad? Lawyer? Teacher?

    Debbies mob have already been AGW victims themselves having a good old feed on the EC drought relief funding.

  191. spangled drongo says

    Luke, can you give us any droughts that weren’t a result of AGW?

    The Mexican Mayan maybe? No?

  192. Luke says

    If there was any major influence it would be past the 1970s. Obviously changes in El Nino to Modoki and changes in the Walker circulation, SST temps regionally, IOD, SAM and STRi give pause to consider whether any AGW factors are at work. And then you have whether AGW might influence location, occurrence or severity or a combination. Complex questions until the evidence would be so obvious that even Neville would agree.

    Energy is not distributed evenly ! Circulation and quasi-periodic oscillations ensure that.

  193. gavin says

    “Energy is not distributed evenly”. Ain’t that the truth!

    Deb; going back to your Q earlier, I don’t think a single person can put a finger on UHI or know if the present US heat wave is more or less than some old records.

    Because I’ve been an “instrument maker” amongst a few other jobs around air “conditioning” I can say it is difficult to calibrate a thermometer in air or read the thing in turbulence. Radiation v conduction and convection around the temp sensor needs to be considered before conclusions about stability. Finally, although a liquid filled glass type thermometer can be reasonably reliable through out it’s life. many don’t make it to old age.

    Temperature records are riddled with undocumented site changes, instrument changes, observer changes and so on. It’s also quite unrealistic for one person to have enough data to find anything other than temperature changes across a range of sites based on their manual recordings. A far better way is to find another reference system and impose that over all max/min thermometer data starting with a search for that hand full of perfect sites and data.

  194. cohenite says

    luke says:

    “Funny that Jen and Jo have run the Gillard politics isn’t it.”

    “Gillard politics”; is that what it is?

    And the Modoki; gee, haven’t heard that for a while; all this stuff luke says about ENSO and other macro-climate factors being affected by AGW; well, it’s the other way round:

    http://www.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/CO2-MEI-LOD.pdf

  195. spangled drongo says

    Luke and his well known unquantifiables.

    How many faint possibilities with unknown cause and effect do you need, to add up to Neville-convincing certainty?

    But he is right on message. The more ignorance we currently have, the more certain the future.

    But gav goes on to make a good case for for scepticism.

  196. spangled drongo says

    gav, that data with all it’s errors is still the best we’ve got but BoM are convinced that it should be either completely deleted or adjusted according to their assumptions.

    They can’t assume in which direction errors were made.

    Why not leave it stand with acknowledged error bars?

  197. Neville says

    One thing we are can be very certain of is the complete fraud of AGW mitigation. The numbers are there for us to see and easily understand. ( except for the pig ignorant )

    OECD increased co2 emissions pa by just 1.4 bn tonnes in 21 years. But the non OECD has increased co2 emissions pa by 1.7 tonnes ( 1 year) from 2009 to 2010.

    This is more than a factor of 20 to 1 and this will go on for decades into the future. So ditch that stupid co2 tax and spend more on R&D and new technology and of course adaptation when required.

    A good start is to increasingly use gas for any new power stns etc.

  198. Debbie says

    Yep,
    interesting paper Cohenite.
    As per usual however, it is full of disclaimers.
    looking more n more likely that it is the other way around.
    Looking more n more likely that people like Nasif & G&T who operate from the well credentialed backgrounds of physics and mathematica (among others) are closer to the mark.
    Looks more n more like human produced CO2 when it is in the physical form of a trace gas in the atmosphere does not perform as per the AGW theory.

  199. spangled drongo says

    gav, we’ve got an old rambling house that I try to keep warm with the minimum of energy and thus have thermometers in lots of places to check and I know what you say about error but imagine the error in satellite measurement of SLR, ARGO measurement etc.

    You get smarter but you dont delete the old data.

    BTW, I rarely need energy for cooling and my warming energy is 100% renewable.

  202. Neville says

    Spangled a good cheap cosy method of keeping warm is to layer up ( more jumpers coats etc ) and use the new electric throw rugs.
    Kmart $39 but selling for $29 now. Very warm and very cheap to run, just cents an hour.

  203. Minister for Truth says

    Part iv from Pickering

    http://lpickering.net/item/16312

    Can it possibly get more shameful than all of this, and thats without adding in the shameful behaviour of the climate catastrophists.

    We demonstrably have the most incompetent and untrustworthy bunch of political and academic elites ever in this countries short history.

    This behaviour by the UWA doesnt help either.

    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/uwa-sponsors-world-wide-junkets-for-poor-research-inept-smears-oreskes/

  204. Robert says

    Apart from the fact that we are the biggest coal exporters in the world, and waste our coal by burning it in clunkers, and don’t have nukes at all, and have mythologised our opposition to hydro…

    …apart from those little contradictions, we really are doing our best. We sermonise, make brochures, push the tax buttons and pull the regulation levers to make things cooler somehow, somewhere…

    …and then, just the other day, bloody Mount Monowai, down in the ocean north of NZ, makes a floating raft of pumice the size of Belgium.

    Belgium!

    I hate it when that happens!

  205. Debbie says

    Luke,
    Did you read the paper Cohenite linked?
    What on earth does your comment have to do with it?
    Does it suddenly upset you that I have confirmed that I have a tertiary education?
    It is only one of the reasons I have cause to comment.
    Go back and look at the list of name tags.
    And strangely I agree that a university degree does not stop people from being thick!
    You also need to brush up on your maths and check what sectors are the greediest snout feeders in the government coffers.
    However, none of that is relevant to the paper that Cohenite linked.
    It concludes that CO2 trails and that other factors rule. Did you notice what those other factors were?

  206. bazza says

    Deb, it it tricky for that little trace of CO2 to remember whether it is supposed to led or lag temps depending on which hemisphere it is in. Tricky too because it is about the same concentration as your local cop would book you for with blood alcohol excess.
    Anyway there are still 172 denialist hoaxes left for you to deftly move on to. On the sceptical science site you have recently done 30 26 11 9 7 6 5 4 3 on a hit and run basis. Have you gone random or is it just hit and miss on a whim and a prayer.

  208. Debbie says

    Huh?
    Have no idea what you are trying to claim now?
    Am I only permitted to comment at one place?
    Denialist hoaxes?
    Seriously?
    The relevance of that comment?
    It’s tricky?
    You think?
    ROFL! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
    Would you like to comment on the paper that Cohenite linked Bazza or is it just too tricky for you?
    Did you not get the part where I said that bad habit of yours only succeeds in making me laugh???

  210. toby says

    Whats the bet our resident catastrophists also support the NBN?! I wont ask it as a question because they never get answered, but if ever there is an example of a lack of common sense and value for money the NBN personifies it……with the carbon tax a close run second.

  211. Luke says

    You’d have to be stupid not to support the NBN. It’s utterly essential. Only knuckle dragging luddites would think otherwise.

    Debbie – strike 3 – yer out.

    Anyway let Cohers look after himself. You try to use your THREE degrees to work out if Cohers paper is any good and tell us all about it. We’ll comment should we feel the need.

  212. bazza says

    Deb, I reckon you lost it even more when you had to throw in your 3 degrees. Only the evidence matters and yours is never original. Quoting your quals is the ultimate argumentum pro ego. Remember that yank who drops in – he had to tell us he once wrote a paper – what a hero.

  213. toby says

    I wonder why only about 15% of businesses with access to super fast broadband use it?

    typical bloody socialist, anti competition and considers cost benefit analysis pointless.

    The NBN is a joke, basically the most expensive piece of infrastructure yet built ( well thought of….by the time its built we will be re-laying the old fibre!) for a need we dont yet have.

    The very fact you support it and consider non supporters luddites should be proof enough your opinion is worthless and Debbie I wouldnt bother trying to argue with them because common sense is not welcome and models make reliable prediitions.

    seriously get a grip with reality man!!

    platitudes are for fools.

    think the NDIS is a good idea? most do, but since our current inept governments have spunked 237billion on nothing we cant afford to do what we all think is a good idea?

    letting socialists near the cookie jar is a very dangerous thing to do……..

  214. Robert says

    “argumentum pro ego”

    Regardless of “quals”, it takes a special blend of ignorance and snobbery to mangle Latin that badly.

  215. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Luke,
    “You’d have to be stupid not to support the NBN. ”

    You would have to qualify that Luke, depends what form the NBN takes, in its current form
    I’m afraid I don’t support it myself. Far too ambitious and overreaching, therefor too costly, in its aim.
    Laying fiber to the “node” and leaving the existing copper network in place, even if new distribution points were to be created that would bring every subscriber to a fast service (ADSL2 at least) distance
    would have been far more desirable and most importantly affordable.

    Also some new mobile network towers could and most probably will be built along the fiber routes thus catering for the needs of customers demanding wireless access and further eliminating the need of fiber to the home.

    Whether the aim was to ultimately control the totality of the network content by government, I don’t know, but it sure sounds like it. Getting rid of a perfectly good infrastructure accessible to all and sundry and replacing it with a government controlled one smells like it.

    “Only knuckle dragging luddites would think otherwise.”

    Or people who happen to know a bit more about it Luke, fast network connections are already available for those who need it and those who don’t really need it but can afford it.

    Some days I work from home and my connection is quite adequate for my needs and may I add that my needs for data volume and speed, even when at home are probably 5 times as much as for an ordinary customer.
    True, I don’t download movies, only big datasheets and graphics which sometimes are actually larger than a movie file.

    People are not stupid Luke, just because they happen to disagree with you.
    They simply see things from a different perspective. Climate “science” is hardly an exact science you have to agree with that.
    There is plenty of scope for other ideas, explanations, it’s not like adding two and two together and all coming to the same answer.

  216. bazza says

    Thought I would make your day Robert, what with your love of history and records. But I suppose if you were rooted in the past, you would be offended by a bit of dog latin.

  217. Luke says

    Of course you can afford it. In fact you’ve never had it so good. The cost benefit is phenomenal. Business is already on board. Just not your pre-historic businesses.

    All the arguments about wireless and decaying fibre are just so bogus.

  218. Debbie says

    No Bazza,
    I was just helping you out with your habit of using name tags.
    I’m actually stunned that it is the tertiary education bits that seem to have caused an issue?
    You can leave that bit out if it upsets you so much.
    While I am not unhappy that I am well educated, I don’t think it is that important.
    You can engage with me as an irrigation farmer or as a business owner if that makes you happier.
    I’m fine with that.
    But it doesn’t change the fact that I am tertiary educated as well.

    Luke?
    my comment was a direct result of reading the paper that Cohenite linked.
    It was also relevant to an earlier comment of yours.
    You tried to make it about something else.
    But if you don’t want to discuss it then that’s of course your choice.
    I’m a bit disappointed but that’s not your problem.

  219. Robert says

    Some dog Latin is fine for a laugh. Bad Latin used to impress and intimidate is another matter. It’s like quoting major authors without pertinence and just for pompous effect. Snob stuff.

    The New Man at Year Zero finds the past so old and smelly. It’s only good for retro fads and important sounding quotes.

    What’s worse, the past is full of bloody precedents!

  222. Neville says

    Why do some people have such a fanatical religious approach to AGW mitigation I wonder? It’s not as if there is any doubt about the source and percentages of human co2 emissions for every country on the planet.

    Simple kindy maths lets us add up the co2 emissions very easily over the last couple of decades.
    So why do they suddenly take this leap of faith and start believing in the barking mad mitigation of AGW?

    There can’t be any dispute about the numbers yet it remains hidden from most members of the public.
    You’ll never hear the MSM discuss the source and percentages ever and their ABC won’t discuss it either.

    Even here the real deniers avoid it like the plague except to throw a few insults as they run away.

  223. toby says

    “Business is already on board. Just not your pre-historic businesses.”..then let them build the bloody thing!…WHY IS THERE SUCH A LOW BUSINESS UPTAKE WHERE IT IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE?…..cos its not needed and by the time it is something better/ cheaper will probably have come along.
    i repeat only an idiot would support the NBN …but I should have qualified that by saying in its current form.
    as JW so wisely suggests, fibre to the node, not home is a much more sensible option and in conjunction with wireless would provide cheap affordable access.
    But no, the govt in its stupidity wants to tear out all copper cable ( creating a monopoply?) and refuses to make use of teh optus and telstra cables already laid and being used.
    It makes outrageous excuses for why it is so far behind schedule and they blatantly lie to teh medias face and get away with…much like the hansen’s and flannery’s of this world…….they may try to do good but in their own stupidity they do far more harm…just like socialism and communism….hardly surpising they also support CAGW!

    I asked the question because it doesnt take a rocket scientist to work out the NBN in its current format is a lemon….much like most of CAGW…..and the people supporting both go hand in hand…unable to actually see through the bullshit…..

  224. Minister for Truth says

    The real knuckle draggers are the incompetent fools who cant do a CBA and a project plan and stage the back bone roll out in a systematic way.

    It would have made infinitely better sense to do fibre to the area nodes and use wireless to premises, where one was able, and then connect with fibre to home/premises when the local CBA at that level, justified it. FTTH for all is overkill.

    Henry Ergas was/is right.

  225. toby says

    Luke the way the cables are being laid will ensure that they do last much past 15-20 years. do some proper research and speak to people who actually are in the know and i would be shocked if you find many supporters in its current form.
    can you point me to a cost benefit analysis showing these huge benefits?….the govt refused to allow the productivity commission to do a cost benefit analysis…because the answer was an obvious no to the project.
    the NBN doesnt even provide the “loop” service that most big businesses demand from what I am told so they may not use it without further modifications. I am no expert but I know quite a few who are, and a lemon is a kind word for the NBN.
    surely when a monopoly is created with a “business model”in the name of the government, your alarm bells would be going off?!
    when the costs rise by billions and the reason provided is”rounding errors” dont you worry about who is running the show?!

  227. Debbie says

    Yes Neville,
    Despite the claim that it is all so tricky, the maths is not that difficult.
    Maybe those members of the public are the innocents that Bazza claims he is defending and others are harming?
    Still a bit unclear on that one.
    BTW Bazza?
    Who’s the Yank hero who published a paper?
    I thought you and Luke respected ‘published’ papers?
    Am I detecting a little case of xenophobia here?

    Re the NBN,
    I remember reading somewhere that NZ is/has implemented a system not unlike what Toby & Minister have described?
    One of our tecchie NZ associates was also recently rather scathing of the way the NBN is being implemented in Australia as a direct comparison to NZ’s system….especially for business use.
    Not my area of expertise…but the NZ guy certainly knew what he was talking about…got the quals and the experience.
    The CBA for our NBN is not available?
    Or not done?

  228. toby says

    Thx minister “”As the government has said many times, it is doubtful these benefits, which are so self-evident and pervasive, could be meaningfully quantified, and even if they could, whether there would be any particular merit in doing so,” …said conroy.

    melb and sydney CBD currently have super fast broadband…but around 15% of businesses use it……….why arent they using it if it has all these self evident and pervasive benefits?
    typical bullshit from the dumb and dumber mob, much like our CAGW comrades. Wanting to drive in a 200k mercedes when a 40k car will do the job fine . Only in this instance we are talking 40-70b compared with 6-10 billion. The way governments spend money nowadays the numbers just roll off the tongue……until the money dries up and real needs have to be foregone.

  230. cohenite says

    NBN now luke; just tell us what it is going to cost; go on, I’ll make it easy for you: name the cost to the nearest $10 billion; go on, how much?

  231. toby says

    “Looks like deniers and NBN sooks go together”..apart from my dislike of the term deniers (for people who are actually rational and sane, whilst indeed it is the other side who are in denial of the bullshit associated with the C in CAGW) i fully agree, your statement is merely rephrasing my own.

    shows where both camps sit.
    sceptics like to consider reality and costs, whilst warmers are completely out of touch with reality and live in a dream world of platitudes.

    So back to the point of my question on the NBN….Deb et al, why bother to try and change their minds? They aint listening cos they cant think with the part of the brain that involves the real world!!

    Im sure they think they are doing good and fighting the good cause, but the reality is the opposite. and ignorance is not an excuse…….

  232. Minister for Truth says

    “Looks like deniers and NBN sooks go together”

    Its more like its the incompetent catastrophists and the financially inept that go together ..the correlation would near exact.

    Must be Labor voters and academics as well.

  233. Debbie says

    Yes I know Toby,
    Giving oxygen is probably pointless.
    It’s good practice though.
    I had a bureaucrat tell me today that we need to stop being negative about agriculture and rural communities.
    When I asked who needs to stop? He meant us!
    So apparently it is our fault that there is a negative public perception about agriculture and rural communities.
    Go figure?

  234. toby says

    Deb, common sense should be called uncommon sense, because the obvious seems to be ignored so frequently….if it wasnt so sad and expensive it would be funny, but its not…….im not surprised you were blamed for -ve sentiment…just like sceptics are to blame for nobody(well many!) believing in CAGW……..

  235. bazza says

    Its the schlocks of the new.
    You wanta see a NBN CBA – Ill show you a break even one. Round figures $50b you would want a social return of about $2b annually. Fair go, all Aussies have to benefit by $2/week to get a $2b benefit?. But wait, we forgot the counterfactual. You can only compare an investment with a counterfactual – that can only be replacing the copper network for a lot less benefit, So a bit less than $2 will do. Should be do-able. Comments welcome.

  236. Luke says

    What a bunch of negative whingers who fill their days with bad thoughts, anger and never construct anything. The culture of rightist whinging.

  237. cohenite says

    “Round figures $50b”

    Nah; Kevin Morgan reckons more then $70 bill.

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_bolt_report_today18/

    The best part of the NBN is that it doesn’t even appear in the budget; even though the government is paying for it, because it is nominally run by a seperate entity it is not considered to be a government expense.

    If the NCTCS were run like that and associated entites were not declared for income purposes the AEC would be all over us like the rash on luke’s head, yet this government makes it’s own rules and wonders why the punters have no respect for it.

  240. Luke says

    Well thank heavens Cohenite – governments are not corporations unless you’re some sort of tea party loon.

    http://lpickering.net/item/12714 – have a good read of the comments. Neville’s mates- what creepy weirdos – how sad to actually be sharing a continent with this lynch mob. Be afraid – be very afraid. Neville loves it. Which was yours Nev?

  241. Debbie says

    Luke,
    It has nothing to do with what people drink and there is no lynch mob.
    It is just ordinary people who are very tired of being told lies. Some of those who comment are very angry and very frustrated and tend to over use hyperbole.
    Your claims about about terrifying mobs who fly around with only a right wing are bordering on delusional.
    They are NOT anything but ordinary people who live and work in the real world and have simply had enough of our self proclaimed ‘betters’ who are in fact just ordinary people too.
    These people you are so scared of tend to judge on ‘results’. They do that because in their world, they are responsible for their own actions and they believe if they ‘stuff up’ they are therefore supposed to fix it.
    They’ve noticed that our ‘elite’ think they can operate outside of accepted and legal social paradigms using the nefarious justification of ‘the greater good’.

  242. Neville says

    Luke I have never ever commented on his site about Pickering’s posts. I’ve hardly read any of them, but the left have the same stupid, clueless weirdos that infest their sites as well. So what?

    At least I understand simple kindy maths while you choose to ignore it or just don’t get it.

  243. toby says

    With an interest rate of 5% (generous) you need 2.5b pa to cover interest costs, on top of that presumably you would have staff, maintenance, electricity, rates, and all teh other inputs required, let alone considering the rate of deprecation on teh investment. 2b is ridiculously far away from teh cost. Add to this the negative consequence of ripping out the optus and telstra cables and the damage done to real competition by a govt owned and run monopoly that by definition will be managed inefficiently and with much higher running costs and i think we get a great glimpse at the ability of warmers to operate in the real world.

    also 70b is probably a conservative estimate of the cost………do you seriously expect a govt to run a business well?…in particular this govt?…have they done anything properly?

    Didnt we sell telstra and privatise many other state run enterprises because they are inneficient?…have you noticed how in the states with state run power the costs are much higher than states operating in a “free” market?
    did you notice how much cheaper airfares got when the 2 airline policy was removed??!!…or are you too young to rememeber…if you are i will tellyou a flight to sydney from canberra in the early 1980’s cost many multiples more than it currently does today.

  244. Neville says

    Luke I’ve now read most of the blogger’s comments on his site and I would probably agree with most of them.

    Larry should have deleted a small percentage and tried to track down the mongrels who talk about killing her or anyone else and give their email links to police.

    But the left does this sort of thing all the time and over the years nearly all the brutal bashings and extreme violence has come from labor and the unions.

  245. Luke says

    No Neville it’s just rank – the of putrid comments and pure evil misogynistic hatred towards Gillard if simply off the meter – it’s simply a fucking disgrace. Even with Howard in children overboard, Iraq wheat and WMD days did it get to this sort of stuff. It really is because she’s a woman (and well as poor politics). But it’s that bad misogynistic woman-bashing aspect of the ugly Australian society boiling over. Fuck’em all including Pickering for tolerating that level of violent evil debate. At some point mate you have to say it’s simply un-fucking-acceptable.

    And somewhat amazing in a society where the economy is doing well, most of us are getting a feed, and I don’t think on last look that the sky had fallen in despite predictions.

    Anyway not long now and you’ll enjoy Abbott so much as Queensland is enjoying Newman as we revolve back to a very divided society not even eclipsed by Joh. The level of buyer’s regret out there is through the roof !

  246. Neville says

    Luke I think you’ll find that people don’t like Gillard the person not so much Gillard the woman.

    Days out from the 2010 election Gillard and Swan deliberately lied to the Aussie people and after she agreed to the Green’s agenda her support dropped to new levels.

    This Labor Green coalition has been a disaster by any measure and Abbott will have a very hard job to fix their mess inside three terms of govt.
    BTW why do you need to swear so much, it certainly doesn’t help your case.

  247. toby says

    is it acceptable that unions rort their members funds?
    is it acceptable that accounts were set up by gillard that were used for the wrong purposes?
    is it acceptable to use as an excuse “i was young and naive”..when she was 34?

    is it acceptable that shorten has apparently deliberately covered up evidence and refused to cooperate with police to protect unions?
    if she did receive “kickbacks” is that acceptable?

    if she got sacked from slater and gordon…should we know why?
    is it acceptable that she rang and demanded teh australian pull its story last year?

    i doubt pickering would be making these accusations without strong evidence…..if he is then he should be done for slander etc…but do you seriously think he is making this up??!

    if guilty should they be in gaol?
    if guilty would it be the deathknell of unions in this country?

    threatening death and violence is wrong….but dont get on your high horse and tell us the left doesnt do this!!??

    i think most of the country celebrated when a female came into office ( i actually did! and i remember the screams of joy from students as they ran up to tell me)….but her inability to make the correct decision has done females no favours (i have 2 daughters and i think females bring tremendous benefits …but i think gillard deserves what she gets..she earnt it)

  248. Debbie says

    Luke!
    You’re spraying negative all over the place!
    This is very telling:
    And somewhat amazing in a society where the economy is doing well, most of us are getting a feed, and I don’t think on last look that the sky had fallen in despite predictions.

    Here you are asking for people to be nice who have been told (very, very, very, very, very rudely) variaions of these general themes….. that they have raped the environment, they’re evil polluters, they should feel guilty about their lifestyle choices, they are killing the GBR, there will be no carbon tax, that their employers are evil, that they need to be ‘transformed’, that there are ‘higher level principles’, the drought was caused by ‘over extraction’ by evil irrigators, the drought was caused by AGW, building dams and upgrading electricity infrastructure is ‘bad, bad, bad’, Progress is dangerous, we’re going to die from heat exhaustion and leave nothing for ‘future generations’, they are harming the innocent, that ‘capatilism’ is evil, that scientists who work for the government are the only ‘good’ scientists’, that they should just ‘trust’ several different ‘academics’, that they’re related to the KKK, that they are ‘deniers’, that they deny that climate has a habit of being variable, that Tim Flannery is an ‘altruist’, that they just ‘don’t understand’ etc etc etc., ….in short….that the sky is falling in!!!!!

    AND NOW????
    You’re saying that it’s not broken so why should we fix it?
    You seriously must be joking!!!!!

    In particular you have never strayed from your theme that we’re all complicit in the future demise of our world because we question the theory of CAGW.
    When people have tried to point out to you that it appears that “the sky has not fallen in”…..what has been your reaction????????

    I feel very, very sorry for people who are losing their jobs in QLD…..those jobs are PS jobs Luke….the bureaucracy has become top heavy and some balance needs to be restored.
    It is most certainly not their fault.
    They are generally nice people who were just filling their job descriptions.
    They have no more done anything wrong than the people who you are forever trying to put down.

    Look to your own behaviour Luke and you may see a pattern developing here.
    Your accusations have caused just as much ‘division’ as anyone else’s.
    There is an old cliche that seems to be operating here:
    ‘What goes around comes around’.

  250. Minister for Truth says

    Spot on Neville, Debbie and Toby

    I quite agree

    You should give it a break Luke, its got nothing to do with gender. The PM is her own worst enemy …by getting elected on the basis of a lie, and then displaying no more competence than Rudd.

    The list of stuff ups caused by her govt (inherited from Rudd or not) is endless and the cost has been horrendous. Here are a few:

    – boat people disaster, and the humiliating back down for something that should have never happened in the first place and her inept handing of it, albeit being caused by Rudd

    – NBN blowout, with another $3 billion of taxpayers’ money added to the huge costs.

    – carbon tax, inflicting more pain for no gain.

    – cost of the BER

    – shredding of our defence forces by budget cuts,

    – growing danger of a fall in mining investment and the looming sharp decline in our terms of trade.

    – lack of funding for the National Disability Scheme promised by the Prime Minister.

    – need to hide all of this by instituting limits on our freedoms of speech.

    Etc, need I go on

    If Pickering has evidence of wrong doing by people currently in positions of power and elsewhere then let that get exposed to the light of day …and most people don’t give a rats whether the PM involved is male or female.

    Why should the standards be lower just because she is female?

    As for Newman giving you poor dears a hard time well he probably has to, in order to fix up the problems caused by Labor in the first place. If the PS has to be cut then so be it thats what happens in the private sector as a matter of course.

    The fact that the sun is shining and all is good and we are all well fed is no excuse for squandering our wealth and capability to do better, by letting ignoramuses let standards slip and doing crap work. I would have thought that was obvious to any rational person.

    At least though, with the NBN you are also being consistent in displaying your own usual level of ignorance regarding what doing a CBA involves, and why one would do it as a matter of course, as well as understanding the NBN, and the range of options that were open to them to achieve the same outcome, all at much less cost. A properly conducted CBA would have uncovered this ab initio.

    But then truth distorters and peddlers of unwarranted alarmism wouldn’t have the practical knowledge that comes from having to earn one’s own keep by being a wealth generator, rather than a wealth consumer.

    At least when its one’s own money there would be more of an inclination to ensure that one gets the numbers right and use proper forecasting techniques. But no, neither the GW alarmists nor the NBN numbskulls could do even that…But then who cares, its only tax payers money seems to be the attitude.

    Try this for starters.

    http://www.theclimatebet.com/?p=401

  252. Robert says

    Of course, the sky has not fallen. No Whyalla wipeout, not yet. Nobody said Australia was easy to wreck, whether from an economic or conservation point of view. It’s just that Rudd, Gillard and Brown have tried hard. Gillard and Milne are still trying.

    You can’t combine waste and ineptitude with conservation. While pensioners are frightened to turn on heaters, high quality land is gouged for coal with savage haste. In a hungry world, we are aspiring to become a quarry. What’s more, as in some old colonial or plantation economies, that carbon is rationed to locals while it is hurried offshore in quantities which are, in fact, “unprecedented”.

    Money is ruling us, because the inner-urban Green Left are in charge, and they are empty of ideas and ideals. Shallow, conceited and materialistic elites never have cared and never will care about the ordinary currents of life.

    Even something as genuinely progressive and noble as a National Disability Scheme will become a Byzantine palace-culture, with a swilling-trough out the back for the Thomsons and Wilsons.

    Boot out Gillard and Milne. Just boot ’em out. If the new lot are a bit better, keep them around for a bit.

  253. bazza says

    Strong evidence of ideologues at work – they move on quick- they have no basis to sustain a discussion whether it is one of the 100 or more favourite denialist hoaxes they keep recycling through, or the NBN. Ill informed comments on NBN CBA included Cohenite who obviously could not think of anything useful to say, Toby who revealed he has no idea of real discount rates in social CBA let alone treatment of the costs and benefits of the preferred counterfactual. As for the Minister for Trite? All missed the point that if you get down to the per person level the net benefits only need to be about what lawyers spill at lunch and the answer is not sensitive to changes in the assumptions.

  254. cohenite says

    Don’t verbal me bazza; I’ve always got something useful to say even if it is only that you and luke are gooses.

    You estimated what the wretched NBN was going to cost $50 billion and I linked to an expert saying, nah, in excess of $70 billion; my point is if noone knows what the thing is going to cost it is ponitless talking about value for money since you don’t know how much money is chasing the value; goose.

  255. cohenite says

    luke, I read your linked article to Crikey having a shot at the Newman government cut-backs and wage limits; that is a political decision; that is what they were elected on; you can say it is not fair that bureacrats are being cut back and losing their jobs and the rest are having ceilings put on their wage increases which will probably be less than inflation; but they are political decisions.

    That is not what Gillard is accused of; she is accused of corruption and criminal offences.

    That is the difference.

  256. Debbie says

    Bazza,
    you are a turning into a bad joke.
    That social benefits argument is a crock.
    Of course we need good infrastructure and of course it is a social cost.
    Like DUH!
    It also needs to be implemented responsibly.
    That’s the bit that is missing.
    It has nothing to do with your stupid name tags.
    You are not standing on a moral high ground no matter how often you try to claim you are.
    Luke has now even tried to play the ‘sexist’ card.
    Good grief! !

  257. Minister for Truth says

    Bazza,

    If you read what I said it wasnt at the individual level, but at the area covered by the node.

    I dont believe for one moment that the CBA woud not have been highly variable according the assumptions.

    What a load of cods wallop that is…

  261. toby says

    “We drew upon scientific (evidence-based) forecasting principles to audit the forecasting procedures used to forecast global mean temperatures by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—leg “1” of the stool. This audit found that the IPCC procedures violated 81% of the 89 relevant forecasting principles.” M of T, you really do have to wonder about these guys dont you!

    and this gem “In our ongoing study we have, to date, identified 26 similar historical alarmist movements. None of the forecasts behind the analogous alarms proved correct. Twenty-five alarms involved calls for government intervention and the government imposed regulations in 23. None of the 23 interventions was effective and harm was caused by 20 of them.”

    we all be ruined said hanrahan before the day is through…….

    surely it our duty to question this bullshit?!

  263. toby says

    so bazza, running costs dont matter? depreciation doesnt matter, pay back doesnt matter, crowding out of the private sector doesnt matter, potential for capital to be used elsewhere doesnt matter? destroying competition doesnt matter. value for money doesnt matter. Time to complete a project doest matter? government capacity (inability)to run an efficient business doesnt matter?You are a conceited ignoramous when it comes to reality. you go hand in hand with the labour and green fools who have no comprehension of money and priority and the reality that we have limited resources and unlimited wants.

    “Toby who revealed he has no idea of real discount rates in social CBA let alone treatment of the costs and benefits of the preferred counterfactual”…they havent even done a CBA!!? have they !?so as usual you are using red herrings to try and show your intellectual superiority.

    i repeat bazza, we know that superfast broadband is available in teh major CBD’S already and yet the vast majority of business and individuals do not use it!…why ? do you think we should build a 10 lane super highway between sydney and melb now, because in 50 years it might be needed?

    and i love this…typical socialist….when you think of 2b as 2 dollars per week per person it doesnt sound so bad…but its still 2 billion friggin dollars…let alone the fact your numbers are way off the mark…..show me where i am wrong…talking about running away from a debate
    every discussion i have tried to have with you is one way, you never answer a question. i promised myself i would never respond to you again, and here i am sucked in again.

  264. bazza says

    Toby, a break even analysis is useful to show something about what the break even benefits ( obviously net) woulld need to be and I scaled them to per capita per annum to stop people going bananas from using billions when you want something to sound bad. I could go through your tirades one by one but I suspect you are confusing a social CBA with a financial analysis. The counterfactual would account for some of the others like crowding out , payback is irrelevant in breakeven analysis etc etc.it would make my day if you dont feel up to responding again – you are entirely predictable anyway so it gets boring and it is hard to be tolerant of that.

  265. toby says

    says baz; “You wanta see a NBN CBA – Ill show you a break even one. Round figures $50b you would want a social return of about $2b annually”
    …ive shown you your numbers are way off….you have running costs, maintenance costs on top of your borrowing costs etc, you are probably out by a factor of 2-3!…or more?…and do you really think it will be built for 50b?!

    your counterfactual is a red herring….when the copper cables do deteriorate it would be Telstra paying to rebuild them …not the public directly, and they would only rebuild them if there was money in it. You want to provide something that currently few use, for a time when we might need it, completely ignoring the pace of technological development. Sure fibre can potentially travel near the speed of sound, but much prevents this….but if in 5 years we have found ( probably got it already!?) a cheaper and as good/ almost as good/ better…how stupid would the NBN look?!
    You also are entirely predictable….given your marriage to CAGW, it wasn’t a long bow to predict you would support the NBN.
    I am no expert , but i know a few and i am yet to meet anybody who really supports this lemon…except for those who place their own self interest over real needs.

  266. Debbie says

    Bazza,
    Net social costs/benefits, counterfactuals etc are meaningless concepts if there is no accountability and it is being implemented irresponsibly.
    NO ONE says that improvements in infrastructure is a bad idea.
    NO ONE says that it shouldn’t come at a social cost.
    Your attitude however is that everyone should stop complaining….they can afford it…. It doesn’t matter that the costs are blowing out because of the net social gains that we are going to achieve.
    That is a complete crock.
    Wasting money and squandering resources is wasting money and squandering resources….it is unforgivable no matter WHO is doing it.

  269. toby says

    It occurs to me that baz and luke probably dont understand what a CBA actually is? it is looking at alternatives uses of capital…or opportunity cost.

    so given that one wasnt done because the decision was made on a plane to brisbane, do you think there could be a more effective use of 50-70b?…we’ll never know because it wasnt done.
    BUT DONT YOU THINK IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED??!!

    I dont expect you to answer because none of that will have made any sense to you……..

    but given the liberals also wanted to provide fast internet via a comination of FTTN and wireless at a fraction of the cost, do you think it is possible theextra money could have been used in other more effective and socially benificial ways?…like roads, p[orts, railwaylines, schools, uni’s, hospitals etc etc….? sure the end product might not have been quite as good, but it would be up and running much quicker at a much cheaper price leaving money for other things….and actually earning income to pay the costs…..it will be years before teh current NBN gets anywhere near breakimng even on its running costs, let alone covering teh borrowing costs.

    can you understand that?

  270. Luke says

    Toby can’t read – only bleat. Thick. Wireless can’t hack it. There is only one technological solution. Tobes wants to condemn us to being a global backwater after the mining booms peters out. Perhaps you won’t need as much road infrastructure and planes if we had a serious NBN.
    http://nbnmyths.wordpress.com/

    Wonder what’s to become of any local manufacturing as the AUD keeps eroding away. More serious issues.

    Meanwhile AARNet will be only using the pissy NBN for local backtraffic. http://www.aarnet.edu.au// The little girl and Kermit the frog are where it’s at.

    Anti-NBN – all part of the Tory script to oppose everything on instinct.

  271. toby says

    so you dont understand what a CBA is then……..

    i love this gem…..wireless cant hack it. Have you told that to Apple?
    are you aware how fast wireless can actually be?
    do you understand what FTTN is as opposed to FTTH?…do you or i at home need FTTH?

    in its current form its a lemon, nobody is saying we shouldnt provide better facilities. JUST WE CAN DO IT NEARLY AS WELL FOR A LOT LESS AND USE THE MONEY FOR OTHER THINGS.
    when is it arriving at your place baz and Luke?

    have you understood yet that a CBA involves actually considering alternative uses of capital? have you really?

  272. toby says

    “The total capital cost of the NBN is $36.9 billion dollars, not $50 billion.”
    first line of your first link their on myths……..since that is already wrong do i really need to read any further?

    but i did…”If it were viable, the private sector would build it”…well they already have built much of it where humans actually live……optus and telstra both have fibre optic cables running from melb to brisbane. Where teh govt should potentially get involved is ensuring people have access to a resonable service…not ripping out what is already built.

    ‘Fibre optics only last a maximum of 15 or 20 Years’….depends where and how they are laid is what i am told……

    and your site links here http://www.sterlitetechnologies.com/pdf/KnowledgeCenter/AN0001%20-%20Optical%20Fiber%20Lifetime.pdf

    and states…”Fatigue or Stress Corrosion Susceptibility Parameter (n-value):
    Flaws in glass fiber can increase in size under the action of stress in the presence of certain
    chemical species like water. This slow crack growth can result in fracture at stresses below
    that which would occur in an inert environment for a given stress level and flaw size. The
    fracture behavior of glass in the presence of such chemicals is called dynamic fatigue. Higher
    the fatigue value lesser is the crack growth and longer the lifetime.”
    I am told they are using cheap blue fibre optic that is highly prone to water damage and since most of teh cable is just being dropped into holes in the ground many are suggesting the lifetime will indeed be 15-20 years.

    and this site of yours reeks of government or self interested propaganda.

  273. Debbie says

    I think you nailed it Toby,
    They don’t know what a CBA actually is.
    So instead we make sneering comments about TEA parties and Tory concepts and idealogues.
    Which is highly ironic.
    Sadly, the implementation of the NBN is not the only example.

  274. Ian Thomson says

    Gidday Baz,

    “Toby who revealed he has no idea of real discount rates in social CBA let alone treatment of the costs and benefits of the preferred counterfactual.”
    God, that is beautiful . I so wish us Neanderthals had such an imaginary command of basic English.

    And, I agree, ( with some of you), that the NBN will be a commercial success — For Telstra.–
    Just like ALL the rural phone towers, ( once owned by the Australian taxpayers), then given to Telstra by Little Johnny, still are.
    If you live outside the Cities they HAVE you, courtesy once again of the Oz taxpayer and crook Govt.

  275. toby says

    yes lukey i did mean speed of light not speed of sound…one to you ( although it was typo……)
    i was trying to counter what i expected you to say about how can we get faster than fibre optic which travels potentially close to the speed of light.

    now show me where the rest is wrong….you seriously dont think a CBA is/ was a good idea??!! you really dont think there could be alternative uses of capital and alternative ways of providing fast speed to those who really need it?

  276. bazza says

    Try a little quantification to put the NBN investment in perspective and they all go bananas in a qualitative way.( shades of attitudes to AGW). Toby still does not get it re opportunity cost etc being inherent. He could give us his break even, go on Toby, have a go. All I said for the benefits needed in per head per week was “So a bit less than $2 will do. Should be do-able”.

  277. cohenite says

    As with AGW the punters are not buying the NBN; as Manne says only the elites like luke and bazza can see the truth:

    “Based on its original targets, NBN Co has achieved only 9 per cent of its rollout target for homes passed by fibre and 3 per cent of the planned connections where customers are hooked up to broadband. Based on its initial estimates, by June this year 317,000 households should have been passed with fibre and 137,000 homes actually connected to a broadband service. In reality, fewer than 25,000 homes had been passed and fewer than 4000 connected.

    Those figures are for existing suburbs and fibre to new estates. When the figures are broken down, it is obvious this isn’t just a debacle but an abject failure by NBN Co, especially in new (greenfield) housing estates. In late May, Quigley told Senate estimates: “As of the last week or so a bit over 300 services have been turned on – activated – in greenfield areas … and there are probably three or four times that quantity of lots that have been passed.”

    So less than 20 months after predicting that 172,000 greenfield premises would be passed and 132,000 connected, 0.6 per cent of the coverage target and less than 0.2 per cent of the active service target have been met.”

  278. toby says

    i showed you your break even was a long way from break even…even if you allow for it being sold in 20-30 years time (if it stillworks or is viable with other technology..its along way away?). its not just a question of covering the borrowing costs….it does cost money to run a business you know? perhaps you dont? do you understand what opportunity cost is? do you seriously think we couldnt provide a similar service for a lower price and use teh money where its needed more?

    economics is all about prioritising the use of resources to maximise utility.
    do you seriously think this does it?!

    well yes you do but you also believe in CAGW….so enough said?

  279. toby says

    those models made it look so easy Cohenite! and they keep telling us that really they are on track.just like the climate is so much worse than we thought…….

  280. Luke says

    FTTH pullease. No latency compromises. Fibre optics ageing? – what paid off Tory plant was paid to spruik that. Bullshit.

    It’s not about CBA – this is national infrastructure., The future of everything. You guys would have also have the flag bearer in front of the steam engine too

    In fact the NBN isn’t fast enough – we should be going AARNet speeds now.

    Debbie knows CBA especially when getting a big feed from the single desk marketing and EC trough. Snort snort. Of course Debs idea of “modelling” is doing a farm spreadsheet with her 3 degrees.

  281. spangled drongo says

    “It’s not about CBA – this is national infrastructure., The future of everything.”

    Spoken in true porcine tones as a permanently attached feeder at the public trough.

    And you have the gall to berate Debbie!

  284. Neville says

    Everyone who thinks ? that “OZ can take action on CC”, just have a look at the following graph via Wikipedia. You’ll note Wiki also uses EIA info.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_dioxide_emissions_due_to_consumption_in_China.png

    Some how I think our 160 million tonnes reduction of co2 emissions ( most by fraudulent carbon credits BS ) by 2020 will be lost in the noise.

    The NBN is a total crock but so is OZ’s tackling AGW and countless billions $ will still be wasted decade after decade for zero change in temp or the climate.

  285. Debbie says

    Luke,
    At least my education has enabled me to do my sums correctly.
    Agriculture is a net positive return to Australia.
    It is one of the few sectors that is NOT continuously subsidised by the taxpayer.
    EC relief could most certainly be better managed, but the program and the reasons for it is not a drain and is not particularly open to rorting.
    Vesting in the rice industry is entirely grower funded and the gummint makes a very nice buck out of it.
    Rice is only ONE of the food and fibre crops that we grow and only ONE of the export earners from this area, albiet a highly successful one.
    The rice Industry is a $billion dollar industry. It is vertically integrated and delivers decent returns to all from paddock to plate, including the gummint.
    Calorific value for just this Industry is 23 million people.
    Australian rice is also the highest yielder/ha and the lowest ml/ha in the world. That means it is internationally recognised as the most efficient in the world.
    As I have suggested before, do your sums Luke.
    Your sneering, negative comments are very hollow and ill informed.
    If the industry supports vesting and it is no burden on the tax payer, why would you have a problem?
    In terms of CBA to the tax payer, it has only returned long term benefits.
    It is actually an industry that Australia can be proud of.
    AND it’s only ONE of our AG industries.
    But sneer away to your heart’s content if it makes you feel superior.
    I will be continuing to enjoy what I do and feel that I do my bit to help feed the world and raise my family, knowing that I produce more in ONE year than my whole extended family could ever consume in multiple lifetimes.
    I also forgot to add to my name tags that I am an EMPLOYER, which also provides another return to the gummint re a CBA.
    Your attempts to put down Agriculture are laughable.

  286. bazza says

    Debbie, you claimed for NBN “That social benefits argument is a crock”. Do you remember who paid for the headworks on almost all Australian irrigation schemes. What happened next. Excess profits quickly turned into land values and asset fixity problems. We ended up with a big irrigation industry at which we were less competitive anyway compared with dryland that had no lobby. The bush got populated for a while and most of the kids and oldies now leave as quick as they can. So much for social benefits in that case. But NBN is different because it is only a small cost per household and does not distort.

  287. Minister for Truth says

    Debbie

    If I were you I would stop trying to debate with these morons.

    They are demonstrating that they are not employers and wealth generators like you are, risking your own assets in tthe process, but are probably nothing more than superannuated PS’s with nothing to do other than post crap at 1.30am.

    They dont know what they are talking about, re either the NBN, or GW, or doing business cases, or CBA, but I am sure that the Productivity Commission AND the Business Council of Australia do…. whom they selectively choose to ignore.

    They clearly have never risked a dollar of their own, and never have had to undertake a CBA or FA, or had to pay someone elses wages out of house keeping monies.That sharpens the mind I can tell you.

    The dipstick is just an apologist for the academics, most of whom have the logical thinking abilities of nits, and who probably spend most of their time plotting and scheming with the GanGrenes on how to enforce their crappy science, and unfounded mantras on the masses.

    They are so far up themselves they cant even follow best practices for the application of stats and forecasting ,and have a limited understanding of cause and effect and in the case of the temperature records it would appear they struggle with basic arithmetic.

    The pinnacle piece of evidence that all is not well, and all that one needs, is that a clown like Flannery was made a fellow of the AAS. What does that say about the rest of them and the overall environment.

    I reckon the best thing to do is join a body that is counter this current non normal ideologically driven policy processes, with the aim in mind that situations like what happened to the Thompsons, for example, never occcurs again.

    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/thompsons-update-looking-for-work-in-the-us-and-pursuing-dec-legally-in-australia/

    This is so utterly disgusting, and every Australian should be ashamed of it, but it is the end result of what has been allowed to happen.

  288. Debbie says

    Yes Bazza,
    It was an extraordinarily good investment wasn’t it?
    You along with Luke need to do your sums Bazza.
    It is now paying back in bucketloads via Agriculture, value add industries (like Sunrice) and ….oh no!!!….CLEAN ENERGY!!!!
    Do your sums Bazza please.
    Your claims about the kiddies and the oldies are not supportable on long term social CBA values.
    When inland Australia was being crippled by drought there was an exodus.There was also restructure happening not just because of drought but the drought certainly exacerbated the pain associated with upgrade and restructure.
    That is paying off right now, straight back into Govt coffers and the exodus has reversed.
    It was not a pleasant time for rural Australia and the extraordinarily ill informed political rhetoric did not endear our opinion of the ‘urban elite’ one little bit.
    That appalling negative rhetoric has more to do with a lack of young people having interest in Agriculture than anything else.
    It even pervaded the education system and is still present in current HSC texts in Australia….even economics text books.
    Your comparison with dryland re competetive is also a total crock….do your sums Bazza.
    You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about and the reference to lobbying is hilarious!
    Rural Australia has obviously been very remiss in political lobbying….that is now changing….but Agriculture is a long way behind that 8 ball.
    Silly us….we thought Australians just knew that Agriculture was a good thing for Australia.
    I think Toby is correct and you have a very limited understanding of the real world and how to do a CBA and even WHY it is necessary.
    Agriculture is LONG TERM investment Bazza and the CBA needs to be LONG TERM….do you understand?
    Re the NBN,
    I do not object to the “CONCEPT”!!!!
    Your inability to understand the point being made is hilarious.
    As someone whose business is most definitely a result of wise LONG TERM investment in national infrastructure I of course can see the BENEFIT of wise, long term investment in infrastructure,
    You are failing to notice that it is the poor regard for responsible ,cost efficient, implementation that is the problem.
    Fobbing it off as a cost per household is not addressing the actual problem.
    BTW Bazza…..it is highly unlikely that we will get NBN here anytime in the near future….I wouldn’t perhaps be subsidising those who already have it would I?
    Isn’t that just a touch distorting of you to represent it that way?
    Interestingly, those same people already had decent internet access… we never even got ADSL here.
    And even more interestingly….I don’t particularly mind….we have wireless and we can cope.
    I don’t get bent out of shape that, without a doubt, I subsidise urban development far more than the reverse….but I do get just a tad irritated at the supercilious, ill informed attitude of people like you.
    I respect your right to work and live where you do Bazza….you go right ahead….. BUT…what makes you think you have the right to judge me and justify attacks on me via some vague moral high ground that you claim you are standing on??????
    What is it about what I do that you think needs your input?
    I don’t even know what you do.
    I don’t even know if Bazza is your name…..and you know what?…I don’t actually even care.
    I do notice however that whatever it is you do must involve a dislike of what I do and some sort of envy (?) or maybe dismissal (?) of my lifestyle choices.
    While that attitude of yours is a tad irritating, it is having NO EFFECT on my opinion of what I do.
    I am a net positive returner to Australia Bazza, I undoubtedly subsidise far more than I take, I care very deeply about my environment and yes, I am also very well educated.
    Your arguments about distorting can be quickly reversed on you….that’s the power of torturing figures…..you know…..statistics and projective modelling….the discipline that just about every profession and business uses as a tool…..but you seem to think is science.
    We also use that tool to do a CBA among other things.

  289. spangled drongo says

    “It’s not about CBA – this is national infrastructure., The future of everything.”

    And up spake Luke Porcina,

    A great consumer he,

    “I will abide on thy Left Side

    And quaff the trough with thee”.

    [apologies to “How Horatio Held the Bridge” by Lord Macaulay]

  290. toby says

    says wise all knowing Baz “Strong evidence of ideologues at work – they move on quick- they have no basis to sustain a discussion”
    so tell me baz how have you tried to engage with any point raised here? look in the mirror you hypocrite.
    you havent even shown that you understand what a CBA is or opportunity cost and yet you have the audacity to sneer.

  291. toby says

    Luke “Fibre optics ageing?priceless ”
    well yes you are…your links show they do decay. talk about thick. how and where are the fibres being laid luke? what quality are they using?

    can you show me you understand what a cba is or what opportunity cost is…do they matter? should we think about priorities? maybe i should ask if you realise that money doesnt grow on trees?….youll probably say well it costs ntg to print it so yes it does………..

  292. bazza says

    Debbie, have you checked out secondary benefits and why they dont count.? Toby, check out transfer payments and why they dont count.? Where is your break even analysis? As for credentials, I dont think they matter compared to what people write. For what it is worth I think the most important aspect of our culture and heritage and what makes it unique is the settlement of rural Australia. And that is where I am from. I just hope you would be a bit more respectful of the role that taxpayers had and have in irrigation development even if it did not do much in the way of drought proofing.

  293. spangled drongo says

    For the last 30 years my connection has been half a mile of copper line hung up in trees through the scrub to my house. It’s good for around 4MBPS which is quite satisfactory but I have asked linesmen from Telstra what I will end up with under the NBN and I have been told that I will have to go wireless at around a quarter the speed. Apparently they won’t run fibre to my place.

    What a great system!

    Proud to pay high taxes for infrastructure like that.

  294. Debbie says

    Toby,
    What they have shown is an ability to DISTORT figs and stat projections.
    They clearly don’t understand what the correct and advantageous use of a CBA is….but they clearly understand how to DISTORT a CBA.
    Regretfully, I believe you may have nailed it again with your ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ comment.
    Bazza seems to believe it grows and is produced by a per household basis….so maybe that’s where the money trees grow in his mind…..in people’s back yards?
    Modern bureaucratic mindset re ‘cost recovery’ assumes that ‘cost efficiency’ is irrelevant.
    Unfortunately that is not just evident re the NBN.
    That behaviour is rampant.
    Opportunity costs and measureable fiscal outcomes? Sensible risk management strategies?
    Unlikely they get that unless they have been personally responsible for that type of fiscal stewardship.
    But because I don’t know if they have ever run a business and relied on doing that with a measure of PERSONAL fiscal responsibility and which others RELY on for their livelihoods via employment etc….I may be making a FALSE ASSUMPTION…..which would be very wrong of me.
    So Bazza and Luke,
    Would you care to illuminate your understanding of these concepts via PERSONAL experience?
    Would you care to explain how you run your business and support your livelihood with either a minimal or zero reliance on the continual exponential input of tax payer funding?
    And Luke….just reminding you….your ‘single desk’ rot doesn’t count. Vesting in the rice industry is ENTIRELY funded by the rice growers themselves and the NSW Gummint is a BENIFICIARY of that not a contributor.
    Rice growers also fund all their R & D work in conjunction with the Dept of Primary Industries.
    In a CBA that means it’s a POSITIVE return to the gummint and therefore the tax payer.
    And Bazza….the capitals are there for emphasis…..and because I still haven’t bothered to work out how to use bold at this site….so I apologise if that’s still annoying you….it’s not why I’m doing it that way.

  295. debbie says

    Bazza,
    Where oh where have I shown disrespect for tax payers?
    I have NO respect for your usual attitude….but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that I am a MUCH LARGER taxpayer than you and that I am a MUCH LARGER contributor to the nation via a CBA than you.
    Despite Luke’s silly little hissy snobby comments, I DO NOT rely on government assistance….and for the short time that I received EC I was VERY grateful and I have ALREADY paid it back.
    AND Bazza for goodness sakes!!!!
    The original tax payer investment has done a great deal towards drought proofing.
    How clueless can you possibly get?
    What kept water in the Murray all the way to SA even in 2006/07/08??????
    What actually kept all the MDB rivers operational (except for the Lachlan for a VERY short period of time) so that inland towns and cities, stock and domestic and permanent plantings managed to struggle through?
    IMHO, what has become evident is that we may need to do MORE to harness 2 of our most abundant and renewable natural resources (but sometimes highly variable)…water and gravity.
    When our totally variable climate turns around and does the EXACT opposite as it has done in the last 3 years….we still suffer from a lagging ability to manage those 2 resources effectively and for the benefit of all….including the environment.
    Come out and have a look for yourself.
    Every river is running a banker and we are wasting the excesses out to sea.
    Considering you believe that we are in danger from rising sea levels….HOW STUPID IS THAT????
    Maybe a more sensible approach to the implementation of the NBN could have seen some funds released to do some sensible R&D into water and gravity infrastructure benefits?

  296. debbie says

    OH! and silly me….in an attempt to keep a long broken deal on your part Bazza,
    I forgot to answer your question to me:
    Debbie, have you checked out secondary benefits and why they dont count.?
    Of course they would count!
    We are talking about CBAs and long term positive returns both fiscal and social are we not?
    As the particular example of Sunrice that I used earlier….those benfits are a direct positive return both fiscally and socially…and the growth of that ONE example is a secondary benefit is it not?
    They return in export earnings to the nation, they return in employment, they return in both direct and indirect tax dollars and they return in the form of community investments and community services.
    You may choose NOT to count them….but that would be distorting the CBA ledger would it not?

  297. gavin says

    Folks, I just spent days trying to get my internet back and so missed a few pages here. I should have left it there but on checking back three unfinished issues stand out,

    1 SD re old Met records “You get smarter but you dont delete the old data”, accept my total agreement but only for use in a polite society.

    2 Our Nassif encounters rank amongst the most unprofessional physics debates ever

    3 The NBN will have no greater cost overruns than the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Snowy Scheme, National Highways, Railways or updated intersection hot spots but it will be even more essential day by day.

    The guy who sold me a new modem yesterday has his whole house running wireless via a modem/router backed by two big media filled hard drives. Two home based wireless frequencies are the order of the day. With WiFi the area covered is only 20m but I can see a few others in my street and there is that dodgy security thing as we go on.

    WiMax won’t be better either with overlaps occurring everywhere as multiple encrypt ions come at a cost and that’s most likely with increasing traffic density. Note TDMA technology with bandwidth sharing and lots of security issues including the IEEE spec.

    http://freewimaxinfo.com/wimax-vs-wifi-comparison.html

    http://freewimaxinfo.com/wimax-limitations.html

  298. bazza says

    Who takes secondary benefits into account when they make their own private investment decisions?

  300. toby says

    baz when you answer a question of mine or rebutt apoint well i will maybe answer your question. but since you dont understand what a CBA is or opportunity cost I dont see the point. Every year that it doesnt break even, means the break even income goes up. And since it wont probably break even for years on its running costs, let alone its interest costs your own BREAK EVEN ANAYLSIS IS RUBBISH. Come back and play when you actually know what you are talking about….even bringing it down to 2 dollars per person per week is crap analysis because in reality what it means( if you were right and you r not!) in my house is I pay 8 per week, or over 400 more per year to fund it……..sorry i am not happy with this additional charge. I know Luke thinks ive never had it so good…sure mate thx, 65k per annum and 3 dependents…im rolling in it! i worry about how to pay my electricity bill and you want me to pay another 400 out. Thx !!

  301. toby says

    Gav, are you for real, you dont think it will over run in costs?…it already has by their own admission. what world do you live in?…have you noticed what has happened with everything else this govt touches ( and i would think all govts….)

    SD, sorry you will be getting slower internet…its called progress……….

    sorry we will be removing that useful competition that would force NBN to be competitive. Without removing the copper they have no viable business, so in a typical totalitarian way they will rip it out and force us to use the NBN and drive many businesses out of business. It amazes me that even the warmers cant see the problem of monopoly and no CBA.

    so when is the NBN arriving at your houses gav, luke and baz?
    i currently pay 60 pcm for unlimted ADSL2….HOW MUCH WILL I PAY UNDER THE NBN FOR THAT?
    remember they are expected to charge a price that gives a7% return on capital!

  302. Debbie says

    But Bazza?
    Aren’t we talking about benefits to the nation and returns to the Australian tax payer?
    Isn’t that the justification for the NBN?
    And strangely Bazza, isn’t searching for a CAGW signal in climate a sort of ‘secondary’ item in the climate modelling?
    And BTW Bazza, in Agriculture we most certainly take secondary benfits into account which would be our own private investment decisions.
    Just as a couple of teensy weensy examples….we sow winter cereal crops into moisture left behind behind by our summer cropping program….that’s a secondary benefit.
    We obtain secondary benefits from our fat lamb production, 3 of them being wool,weed control and natural fertiliser for our soils.
    We also obtain a secondary benefit by grazing our lambs on our early sown winter cereal crops.
    We recycle water and re use it…which is a secondary benefit…from a direct personal investment into a secondary benefit.
    We employ workers and contractors, which is a secondary benefit….especially to those workers and contractors….they also pay taxes…which is yet another secondary benefit.
    We use natural fertiliser from other industries such as chook farming, feedlotting & wineries, which is a use of and an investment in a secondary benefit.
    We invest in our local rice industry and we receive returns in the form of dividends and the assurance that they will receive all our crop… which are secondary benefits….as a direct return on the investment.
    We invest in R&D in conjunction with DPI which returns a secondary benefit in the form of higher yields and better more efficient farming practices.
    That is just a FEW of the secondry benefits that we consider in our own private investment business decisions.
    But Bazza,
    I’m very tired of just answering your questions.
    I would appreciate you answering some of mine.

  303. debbie says

    Gavin,
    If I knew what you were actually asking me I would answer you.
    Are you claiming that we get our rail links for free?
    You maybe need to come and visit this area and have a look at what those rail links are used for and what the CBA benefits to Oz would be and BTW how much we have to pay to use them.
    Also Gav,
    Infrastructure projects run by Govt always have a nasty habit of blowing out….lately however….that has reached unforgivable levels….and the NBN is not the only example.
    You can’t fob it off by pretending it doesn’t matter….there MUST be at least a measure of fiscal accountability and responsibility.
    Massaging figures, dismissing bad behaviour and excusing blatant fiscal mishandling is not going to reduce the potential damage, it will quite clearly make it worse.

  304. toby says

    Deb, you should also point out that you would consider alternative uses of your resources in order to try to maximise your income ( at least i assume you do because you know how to run a business!)…ie I assume you would consider expected rainfall and temp and what you might be able to grow and then try and predict which crop might be best to plant. Sometimes you will be wrong, but at least you will know why you did what you did and why it went wrong!
    with the NBN, we ve no idea what the other uses of this capital could be or if a cheaper and quicker to establish strategy would have increased the benefits…because they didnt do one! how criminal is it in reality to use tax payer funds in this way without being able to show us teh real bnefit or opportunity costs.
    dumb and dumber is way to kind….

  305. toby says

    whilst also considering the secondary effects of your decisions……..i suspect baz only considers secondary benefits but not costs……… I ll bet you dont!

  306. Debbie says

    Well of course Toby.
    To both those comments.
    It is a COST BENEFITS ANALYSIS after all! 🙂 🙂
    But understand perfectly why you needed to point that out.

  307. Pikey says

    Blimey Guys.
    Reading this is like watching the All Blacks play rugby against the Upper Bethungra CWA.
    You Guys have been slaughtered.
    Yes that is Luke, Gavin and Bazza, you have used obfuscation, personal ridicule, character assassination and irrational hype and Debbie has destroyed you on all fronts; ably assisted by Cohenite, toby and others.
    Time to pack it in Guys and find a playing field where you can display the lessons that life has taught you, but you are out of your depth here.
    Pikey.

  308. gavin says

    Watching the Catalyst story on mobile phone use and brain cancer I’m reminded of the Radio National discussion this week about wind turbines and other personal health risks. Yes, I have severe tinnitus and have been exposed to both “wind” and “farms” simultaneously but I know most of us can put that down to long term exposure to heavy “industrial” type noise and yes, we can do that at home too.

    After following various studies on health risks generated by our use of modern technology at work and home I say we need to proceed with considerable caution any expansion of our radiation background, mobile phones and modems included. Most radiation heats and burns as the power goes up. Keeping your distance from unshielded transmitters gets harder with time in this wireless age.

    I clearly recall radio communications being two way and interference being quite common between users. My task was to assess in parts city sized groups of users in order to facilitate greater traffic densities i.e. maximum future potential based on CBA by our planners but that was decades ago when government’s could manage outcomes.

    Today every body is a potential hacker and as time goes on that is more and more your problem. Fixed links and private networks stand like farmers at the edge of a sprawling city.

  309. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Well said Pikey.

    I’m sitting back here and shaking my head at the silliness of Luke in this instance.

    bazza? well, I regard him as the little terrier running and yapping around the legs of the big butch bulldog in the cartoons, looking for approval from Luke.

    as to gav? less said the better. Time is a cruel master and it affects us differently.

  312. Larry Fields says

    While the cat’s away, the mice will play. Here’s my latest article at Hubpages. Enjoy.

    So you want to be a Cryptozoologist?

    Summary:
    This article considers the limitations of Cryptozoology as a scientific career. We also touch upon two aspects of Cryptozoology: some obvious codswallop, and some credible albeit inconclusive evidence for one particular Cryptid, Bigfoot.

    Here’s the link.
    http://tinyurl.com/cf92rkk

  313. Luke says

    Of course what’s fascinating about CBA is when issues like WMD and Iraq come up it all flies out the window and the inmates here never squeak. Just your Tory Tea Party talking sheet guys.

    I wonder if Bazza might know anything about NPV (LOLZ)

  314. Luke says

    Of course Pikey, Debbie was serious – we weren’t. Our performance indicator is to see how many lines of text we can get.

  315. Debbie says

    Hope it’s a duck Gavin,
    that catchment of yours is very wet.
    Got rain falling on that snow too.

  316. toby says

    wrong again luke, i always argued iraq was a stupid decision ..including a number of 2 way emails with bolt ( to his credit he responded with more than a page in each instance of his own opinion and words…not cut and paste.
    we agreed to disagree in the end.

    well if none of your comments were serious and you both just wanted to see how many lines people wrote you succeeded…doesnt say much about you if you really mean that….i suspect its just your defence for being made to look silly?

  317. Neville says

    Well everyone at last you have the confirmation from the donkey’s mouth. Luke, Gav and bazza are just BS merchants and liars and definitely not serious.

    They’re just here to write BS forever and they want to waste your time according to the number one donkey.

  320. Debbie says

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-17/climate-change-sees-tropical-fish-head-south/4203830?section=tas

    I actually have a lot of time for the CSIRO via their depts that actually do GOOD WORK for industry agriculture and the environment.
    But check this out.
    Who are they doing good work here for I wonder?

    Luke,
    Keep digging that hole for yourself.
    Your snide comments are not having any effect whatsoever other than making you appear increasingly belligerent.
    I for one don’t drink much TEA, I much prefer coffee.
    Am enjoying a cup right now but nearly splattered it over my screen when I started laughing at your comments. 🙂 🙂 🙂
    ROFL!!!!

  321. Minister for Truth says

    “Our performance indicator is to see how many lines of text we can get.”

    Thats been well understand for some years that it was your KPI, after all, it is on much the same basis for how GW science work is propogated … mostly by content free garbage being reviewed by people much like yourself…air heads who cant make or do anything properly.

  322. bazza says

    A dozen examples from Deb of secondary benefits and maybe one or two would scrape in to the definition as accepted by CBA analysts so they can have a sensible discourse. I had presumed from your fearless comments that you were a bit informed, maybe even a smidgen of economics in your 3 degrees. And no one game to straighten you out. Loyalty trumps ignorance. Even Toby feared to tread – still waiting for his break even which actually requires no knowledge of the actual benefits – it is usually and simply a guide to inform sensible discussion. One point about secondary benefits – would you invest in one that made a loss so some other business can profit.?
    And for something totally irrelevant given your challenge on who contributes the most – If you think you are paying more tax than me , then either stop guessing all the time, get a new accountant ( Ill do it for half the savings) , or do a course in time management.

  323. Debbie says

    Very, very bored with you Bazza,
    You have progressed from being ironically hilarious to a just a very bad joke.

    Here we go….some important unanswered questions for you.
    What’s YOUR definition of a CBA as accepted by CBA analysts Bazza? You need to substantiate that claim.
    Where are your practical examples of such things? Once again you have nothing to back that claim up….NOTHING!
    Just a little bitty hint…..they involve more important aspects that merely justifying cost recovery.
    Do you know the difference between a social and a financial CBA.?…or indeed the difference between a private business, public business and a Govt CBA?
    That is a question that has been asked of you several times by several different people here…and remains totally ignored….even though you skate precariously between making broad statements about all of them…..how about instead you actually ANSWER THE QUESTIONS with substantiating evidence that proves you understand what you’re talking about?
    Do you run your own business and are you personally responsible for your own fiscal due diligence?
    You continuously imply you have great personal experience and knowledge….PROVE IT!
    What is so ZOOOOPERIOR about what you do that gives you the self proclaimed and totally, completely unsubstantiated right to sneer at others?
    Is Bazza even your real name?
    More taxes?…hmmm….do you perhaps not understand the difference between PAYG and other forms of taxation? I don’t actually have a job anymore Bazza….I sacked myself from a good job that was related to my education a few years ago so I could devote my time to running our irrigation business as well as other business interests.
    I’m no longer an employee….I am actually an employer…..so the tax income I directly generate for the Gummint is actually duplicatable and sort of part of that secondary benefits thing you seem to have trouble getting your head around.
    And Finally,
    Why does it irritate you so much that I am very well educated?
    It seems strange that you & Luke would want to put someone down for that. I have already given you permission to ignore that part if it is so distressing for you…..you can engage on behalf of some of my other name tags if you like (which if you bother to re read them sort of makes your comment about time management absolutely hilarious).

    NO! 2 more.
    Are you trying to hint that you’re a cheap accountant?
    Are you trying to hint that you’re an expert in time management?
    I am fascinated….do tell.

  324. Debbie says

    And Bazza,
    Just so we’re perfectly clear, this is YOUR question that I answered:

    Who takes secondary benefits into account when they make their own private investment decisions?

    Reread my answer…..I most definitely answered the question that YOU asked did I not?

  325. gavin says

    A certain drive by shooter needs a serve too, just hit and run hey. I had a long post accumulating in the dialogue box overnight but the cat sat on the mouse and in one zip it was gone!

    Short version: I was tasked late 80’s to report on known radio hazards in modern law enforcement operations and VIP protection. Facts, if you sit on a working transmitter long enough it will fry your privates. Even a common 5 w hand held can burn your finger at the RF output. RF transmitted inside a vehicle can resonate inside the shell. Such a tank circuit can be an emitter or a cooker. We changed some setups.

    “While RF energy doesn’t ionize particles, large amounts can increase body temperatures and cause tissue damage. Two areas of the body, the eyes and the testes, are particularly vulnerable to RF heating because there is relatively little blood flow in them to carry away excess heat” most recent, US Drug and Food Admin- “Do cell phones pose a health hazard”

    For a more technical approach

    http://www.ohsbok.org.au/downloads/25%20Non%20Ionising%20Radiation.pdf

  326. Minister for Truth says

    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/thompsons-update-looking-for-work-in-the-us-and-pursuing-dec-legally-in-australia/

    It is a complete indictment upon us all as Austalians that there has been very little effective resolution and compensation for what and how the Thompsons were treated by the WA govt and the incompetent beureaucrats and political ideologues that did what they did.

    It is a more serious example of how our systems of governent are failing us and hurting hard working people in major way..but to do it to an overseas investor and hard worker and thoroughly decent people….. is something we should hang our heads in shame about

    Clearly our current political, academic and beuraucratic elites are the worst we have ever had.

    Shame

    ..

  327. bazza says

    yes, Minister, sadly several feedlots have recently gone down , not quite like flies, but probably none because of opposition to GHG policies or compiance with the odour issues. It was a tough decade for them. Try high grain prices from droughts in Australia, diversions to ethanol , exchange rates, GFC etc etc. Sorry to spoil a Nova story.

  328. Neville says

    Here is a talk by Lomborg to the Royal Society about AGW and all the problems trying to do the right thing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MEKyJEn0Wk

    Just proves why mitigation by reducing co2 is a total fraud and con. Polar bears, the Maldives, SLR, UHIE, heat deaths,malaria etc are covered and the very easy solutions to these problems.

  331. Debbie says

    Sorry to burst your bubble Bazza,
    All of those factors you mentioned were certainly contributing factors. They contributed to making this business highly vulnerable.
    You are also correct that some of those factors have contributed to other feedlots having to cease operations.
    No argument from me there.
    The final straw in this particular case however was the treatment by bureaucrats.
    You may also need to explain why diversion to ethanol ended up being a problem….as it has a bureaucratic twist to it as well doesn’t it?

  333. gavin says

    Nev; I thought you could do better than repeat a whole lot of twaddle at WUWT.

    Deb; Still havn’t seen snow here but we had rain that sounded like rice thrown at the window

  334. Debbie says

    Gee Gavin,
    The ABC must have been wrong then.
    They reported that it snowed there on August 9th.
    Also Gavin,
    What is is your link re the fires in US proving as a rebuttal to SD’s links and comments?

  335. spangled drongo says

    So, what are you saying, gav? That during a hot summer ya gonna get bushfires?

    Well, well! Hard to believe.

    I’ve been working my tail off for the last few days cutting firebreaks in my place as well as the adjoining nat parks because the bureaucrats think we should eradicate this collossal fuel load and thereby keep their collective arses out of the fire. They have finally given the go-ahead only we are running way behind time. We had it all prepared this time last year but they backed out at the last minute because it suddenly became too dangerous.

    I’m expecting the same again. I say to them every time, just give me the box of matches and I’ll burn a bit at a time with min risk and a cool burn but they want to have the whole army there and do it in one hit. You’ve gotta be lucky to do that. One end will be too wet and the other too dry or one just right and the other explosive.

    I”m not prepared to start without their say-so because if it doesn’t go ahead the firebreaks only make a highway for the feral predators to kill all the wildlife.

    Good times create bad times and vicky verka. Economically, ecologically and all ways.

  336. gavin says

    Deb, I’m going to ignore your Q re that US fire season report and go strait to our situation as stated in the latest AU climate outlook. What SD fails to mention is this minor detail, our East Australian Current has been impacted in a big way.

    “What is expected?
    EAC flow will increase off southeast Australia with a compensating decrease off north-east Australia”

    http://www.oceanclimatechange.org.au/content/index.php/2012/report_card/

    This has been my drift here for years. It was all about my own observations re quite measureable changes in SL and SST during our lifetime. Our weather has changed too. We get a lot of rain from the Tasman Sea and if you look at those IPCC projection graphs in this report, its most likely to get more lumpy (extreems) as we go on.

    My case still rests with larger and more dynamic weather systems crossing Bass Strait

  337. gavin says

    SD; since we value your most direct observations I have only one point to make and it is simply grass is the wick to the bush.

    So you and your local authorities must not leave what could considered the fuel for a dry season fast running crop fire that can move at 3m/sec on a bad day.

  338. spangled drongo says

    So, gav, you supply the crock without the croc [with a little help from your friends].

    I know a little bit about the East Australian Current because my income depended on my ability to combat it for a few years and generally the faster it runs, the warmer it is. [southerly set]

    And the faster it runs depends on how strong the wind was blowing at some earlier period to cause the southern ocean to mound up on the east coast and over the continental shelf before reaching a height at which it will break back against same wind causing a current. So the EAC speed will be higher if the south wind is strong enough to hold the ocean levels high and then subsides suddenly or is replaced by a northerly which shoots the ocean back southward at a rate of knots. And the longer this mounded-up water stays in the north the warmer it becomes.

    Also the EAC is not continuous but can operate in gyres where inshore the current is reversed.

    The art of winning coastal yacht races is to be where it is going your way and prior to the GPS the only way to know this was by thermometer.

    The EAC also runs in the opposite directions in periods like October when strong northerlies persist. Then, the temperature is cooler the stronger it flows northward. [northerly set]

    This SLR and ST fluctuates regularly and has nothing to do with Global Warming and probably happens in some form where any continent fronts the ocean.

    CSIRO are on dodgy ground with this argument. Get years of southerlies and the EAC will be warm. Years of northerlies and the reverse. I wonder if they ever checked the mariners Pilot Charts to see what the ratio of southerlies to northerlies was over the last two centuries?

    No. thought not. Their data on this is tiny.

  339. Robert says

    There’s more than a whiff of El Nino with all these stiff north-westerlies. It’ll be interesting to see how this one behaves, if it emerges big time. I’m usually in the paddocks and bamboo grove a lot through the spring. I won’t miss it.

    For the Kool Kidz, history is a dank old thing, which makes bumps in well-crafted hockey sticks and which is so full of precedents that it makes even the Kool Kidz nervous of saying “unprecedented”. (They’ll still say it, of course.) Talk of fire conditions in North America brings to mind the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. What is interesting is not the well known scale of that disaster, but, rather, the time of year and what was happening elsewhere.

    The toll from Chicago was light, all things considered, and one should not be amazed that a large wooden city might burn in the right conditions. (Maybe General Sheridan’s ruthlessness worked for the good on this occasion.) But 400 km away, the Peshtigo Fire, on the very same day, was the most lethal in America’s history. In a far less populated place than Chicago, up to two and a half thousand perished – though census records etc were obliterated, so nobody knows. 1.5 million acres were charred.

    Does this make us think of climate conditions? Not yet? On the same day, Holland, Michigan, across the lake, was burnt to the ground. On the same day, 160 km north of Holland, the Great Michigan fire occurred. On the same day, the Port Huron and Urbana disasters occurred.

    On the same day, all this happened. And it was a day in mid-autumn. This wasn’t a great forest fire. These were fires that raged anywhere they could, and which jumped rivers, over several states. (Ontario’s turn came three days later.) Even till recently, people were trying to explain all this as the result of a comet!

    This is how it is. You have heat and drought that are bad enough. Then you have parching winds that are strong enough and dry enough. Then you get Chicago, Peshtigo etc.

    The value of being observant of the present should be obvious. We might indeed learn that things are worse than we thought, when thing are worse.

    History, however, shows us that things frequently WERE worse than we thought, till we were informed. History helps us to be more than intellectuals. It helps us to think.

    So think!

  340. spangled drongo says

    Just something further to add to the CSIRO claim of tropical species moving south with the EAC. What would you expect to result from a natural, almost continuous south-heading conveyor belt that is delivering warm water from the Great Barrier Reef area as far south as Tasmania?

    If tropical species did NOT end up in that southern area it would be much more unnatural.

  341. Debbie says

    Good one Spangled.
    Actually we have been getting pelicans and seagulls out here in the middle of the MDB…we have even spotted a sea eagle….and of course it has happened before.
    Sometimes I think these people must believe that our native flora, fauna and fish build permanent homes like we do…and they don’t like to move.
    They don’t seem to inderstand that fish know how to follow currents and that birds do something similar in slip streams.
    They are far, far more adaptable and far smarter than us humans sometimes.
    You should see the explosion of life out here in the supposed dead and dying MDB.
    Apparently Lake Eyre has been going ballistic as well?
    How’s the weather in the ACT tonight Gav?
    Bit chilly?
    Bit sleety and wet?
    Did you see the snow report?
    Or have our ABC got it wrong again?
    You might take the time to check those dam levels while you’re at it….could become a little bit tricky don’t you think?

  342. Minister for Truth says

    “Try high grain prices from droughts in Australia, diversions to ethanol , exchange rates, GFC etc etc. Sorry to spoil a Nova story.

    More bullshit from basil brush

    If that was the case why did the DEC go after them with every scum bag dirty trick in the book, they could have just let the market take its course.

    Even the DEC officers say that the Thompsons were unfairly treated

    You mob will do anything to cover up your bastardry and incompetence.

  346. gavin says

    Deb; as you are most likely aware, this stuff is coming out all the time now.

    http://www.csiro.au/en/Portals/Media/Warming-causes-more-extreme-shifts.aspx

    Regarding that snow, I’m too crook to have a look at even the nearest hills. Winter flu has really caught up with me today and I won’t be doing much this week end either.

    A guy on ABC radio being interviewed about rural tree projects said the snow was’t settling out his way, somewhere at the back of Canberra.

    Nite Caps all

  348. spangled drongo says

    gav, that CSIRO stuff on the SPCZ sounded OK until I read the first page of the paper, then this:

    “We estimate the increase in zonal SPCZ events from an aggregation of the climate models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phases 3 and 5 (CMIP315 and CMIP5) multi-model database that are able to simulate such events.”

    Oh dear!

  349. spangled drongo says

    Deb, it’s been a beautiful warm sunny day here today and my cheese and kisses [who is recovering from a cold] is tickled pink but that weather is heading for us tomorrow.

    More Oh dear!

  350. Debbie says

    Yes Spangled,
    It makes those exponentially increasing global averaging reports look increasingly ridiculous.
    The climate/weather is simply refusing to cooperate.
    It is of course changing but it doesn’t seem to want to change in accordance with the models.
    Even the Canberra weather/climate is refusing to cooperate.
    It is still freezing here but we have had a very welcome drop of rain.
    The birds, frogs, tortoises etc all look pretty chuffed too.
    Funny how they all re appeared like that. Supposedly we destroyed their habitats and VIPs like Tim Flannery can’t call them anymore. He is also deeply concerned about people getting cranky in traffic jams because of heat in Sydney.
    I guess they will all be in a good mood in the traffic today? BoM says it’s a bit chilly there.
    Winter crops look awesome!
    Pity all the excess water is belting out of storages, running the banks and off out into those scary oceans.
    I’m sure Luke et al will eventually figure out how to blame us for it somehow. . . and then justify an increase in taxes/charges because they can fix it!
    And of course keep those fragile tempers in the traffic under control.

  351. Neville says

    Just more proof that Mega droughts and climate changes occur around the world all the time , sometimes over thousands of years.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/17/climate-and-drought-lessons-from-ancient-egypt/#more-69403

    ZERO human involvement for these mega changes. I’m just glad we live in such a mild period today plus our adaptive human resource and our science based technology and all our personal mod cons.

    See down in comments at WUWT about some very interesting videos and some even from the BBC with no AGW BS.

  352. Debbie says

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Climate-change-forces-mirgration-of-Australian-tropical-fish/articleshow/15535737.cms

    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/protection-to-help-save-shrinking-undersea-jungles-20120817-24duy.html

    Nope Gavin,
    At the moment they’re coming out thick and fast.
    All have that ‘climate change’ tag.
    Looks just a tad desperate to me….or maybe they were ‘commissioned’ to all appear at the same time? I am of course only assuming….which could be very wrong of me.
    There is clearly little doubt however that the PR dept has gone into spin overdrive.

    Here’s some simple direct questions for you ….Luke, Bazza and Gav…..
    Considering the discussion on CBA that has developed here…..
    Please outline the social and fiscal CBA analysis of this exponentially increasing number of items that appear under the guise of ‘science’, or as minister put it rather succinctly yesterday:
    “mostly by content free garbage being reviewed by people much like yourself…
    Considering the number of them, they are most certainly taking up a lot of time.
    And time is money in the world of employment you know.
    It is us tax payers who are funding these.

    What are the BENEFITS in relation to the COSTS?
    Who/what is this helping?
    What is it that they are hoping to achieve?
    What exactly are they attempting to prove?

    I also draw your attention to this analysis on energy….sorry it’s from the Jonova site, but the contributor is not pretending to do anything other than state the actual figures:
    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/how-much-electricity-do-solar-and-wind-make-on-a-global-scale-answer-not-much/#more-23371
    What’s also being pointed out here very clearly is that political performance is not matching the empty political PR rhetoric.
    Political PR spin is merely Political PR spin and that’s where we always find those figures getting tortured to the point that they will admit to just about anything.
    Of course they aren’t the only ones who do it….but in this instance we are all being charged for it with no choice and no right to question….which has nothing to do with how the market would operate and eventually curb this flagrant expenditure blowout!

  353. Neville says

    Debbie just to back up the info from Jo Nova. The facts are that in 2008 China only derived 0.2% of its power from solar and wind etc or other renewables.

    http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=CH See pie chart down page from the EIA.

    The Greens prattle on forever about how well China is performing using renewables but forget to mntion that most 6% comes from hydro.
    BTW Bolt showed yesterday that a lot of the solar companies in China are going broke and some company heads are suiciding as a result.

  355. Luke says

    Meaningless stupidity from Wattsy disinformation central. As if climate science does not know about or has no interest in palaeoclimate issues. Get real. More on the “shit has happened before” meme.

    Debbie stop prattling – its really is becoming tedious. Bazza has forgotten more about CBA than you’ll ever know. Your snide on the tropical fish movement is pure stupidity but that’s what we’re beginning to expect. You really are thick as a plank – the old “when it’s happening it’s still not happening” meme. Good grief. It’s only about what you’d expect, and not overclaimed. Yes Victoria under climate change species might move. A duh !

    As for CBA and costs – try working on the left hand side of the ledger for a while.

  356. Luke says

    Our self confessed drongo thinks CSIRO don’t know about decadal variability and our home spun old codger sailing stories of yore are somehow science.

    http://www.oceanclimatechange.org.au/content/index.php/2012/report_card_extended/category/east_australian_current

    “Summary

    The East Australian Current (EAC) is a complex and highly energetic western boundary system in the south-western Pacific off eastern Australia. The EAC provides both the western boundary of the South Pacific Gyre and the linking element between the Pacific and Indian Ocean gyres.

    The EAC is weaker than other western boundary currents and is dominated by a series of mesoscale eddies which produce highly variable patterns of current strength and direction. Seasonal, interannual and particularly strong decadal changes are observed in current which tend to mask the underlying long-term trends related to GHG forcing. WHAT’S THIS DRONGO !!!

    Observations from a long-term coastal station show that the EAC has strengthened and extended further southward over the past 60 years. The south Tasman Sea region has become both warmer and saltier with mean trends of 2.28°C/century and 0.34 psu/century over the 1944-2002 period which corresponds to a poleward advance of the EAC Extension of order 350-km.

    The observed intensification of the EAC flow past Tasmania is driven by a spin-up and southward shift of the Southern Hemisphere subtropical ocean circulation. Changes in the gyre strength are, in turn, linked to changes in wind stress curl over a broad region of the South Pacific. The oceanic changes are forced by an intensification of the wind stress curl arising from a poleward shift in the circumpolar westerly winds due to the trend in the Southern Annular Mode

    Observational and modelling studies indicate that these changes in the wind patterns are at least in part attributable to ozone depletion over the past decades. However, at least some of the trend is likely to be forced by increases in atmospheric CO2. Climate models under observed CO2 increases, also produce an upward trend of the SAM and a consequent intensification of the Southern Hemisphere gyre system.

    Climate model simulations strongly suggest that trends observed over the past 50 years will continue and accelerate over the next 100 years.”

  357. Debbie says

    Gee whiz Luke,
    I was just asking some questions.
    Can you possibly see your way clear to answer them?
    You seem to think that behaving like a cyber bully is helping to advance some logical case on your part.
    Here is a supplementary question for you:
    Can you please substantiate this statement of yours with evidence?

    “Bazza has forgotten more about CBA than you’ll ever know”

    There is no evidence of that anywhere at all….either way….whether I know more than he does or vice versa.
    He did hint that he is a cheap accountant with time management skills….but that was just a hint and certainly doesn’t substantiate your statement.

    BTW Luke… please rest assured that no one is disagreeing with you that MODEL SIMULATIONS strongly suggest trends…..you don’t seem to be getting it….we can all see quite clearly what the MODEL SIMULATIONS are strongly suggesting.

    If you would just pay attention, the question is if emerging real time data is supporting those projected trends, if the data has actually been presented and used corectly in the modelling and also if we should actually be charging everyone taxes to reverse these modelled trends …..especially since it is starting to look as if natural variability and the behaviour of countries like China is going to defeat any such efforts anyway.

    Also….please note Luke….this comment:

    “Climate model simulations strongly suggest that trends observed over the past 50 years will continue and accelerate over the next 100 years.”

    Is essentially no different in meaning to this one:

    “More on the “shit has happened before” meme.”

    But splutter and bully away to your heart’s content if it makes you feel better.

    I would still appreciate answers to some fairly simple questions… preferably without the personal comments if you can possibly manage it.

  358. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Neville, toby, Debbie, MoT, Robert and others.

    My hat’s off to you for persevering.

    I apologise to gav. about my quip, but honestly my BS tolerance is near zero and practically that is all we get from these people recently disguised as “science”, along with the customary name-calling and abuse.

  359. Luke says

    “He did hint that he is a cheap accountant with time management skills…” – no you’re just cluelessly projecting as usual. Like many on here. Maybe he’s a bot designed to test silly people? Certainly you have yet to pass your own Turing test.

    We’re not talking about models. Good lord ! So dense.

    Thick as Debbie – your many degrees must be on soft subjects.

  360. Luke says

    Johnathon – basically you obviously enjoy a thick soup of stupidity, disinformation, seasoned with redneck comments. Take the crass unintelligent comments about the changes in south-east Australian ocean currents and species distribution. An observed trend over a long period of time. For dimwits like Debs this is what we call “obs”. There might be some further work in an attempt to resolve is ANY anthropogenic influences might be at work. Ning nongs would have missed the import of ozone depletion (Debs can as a test of attention tell us why that might be a factor) versus GHGs versus natural variation in that process. Some of these attribution studies do not implicate AGW. It’s called science.

    Really Johnathon the level of commentary is Neanderthalian –

  361. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Luke
    “Really Johnathon the level of commentary is Neanderthalian -”

    I agree, that some are not peer review material but still worth reading and have relevance.
    Personal observation, whether done by PHD scientist or laymen are equally valid.
    What interpretations you put on it is the important factor.

    I think Robert wrote something along the lines of “Think”.
    One would assume that thinking, being a natural process is easy, it’s not.
    At least clear logical considerations of facts is not, we are all burdened with believes, group influence etc. which taints the outcome.

    You dismiss the links provided from WUWT and other sites out of hand as useless, I read most of them including the links you provided and I can tell you that I find just as much, if not more rubbish in those as I find in the former. Dismissing any on party lines is silly.

  362. Debbie says

    Luke,
    another supplementary question for you, while I note that you have avoided answering any of the ones I have asked.
    If we’re not talking about models, what are we talking about?

  364. Luke says

    Johnathon – 2 issues – I’m returning the favour of dismissal – study your colleagues (here) rejection of any “AGW-ish” science paper automatically. Secondly so many try-ons at Wattsup and so sneering political are the comments. All these try-ons take hours to work through. is it worth it?

  365. Debbie says

    So Luke?
    While noting you have still not answered earlier questions.
    What’s wrong with me observing that we have got seagulls, pelicans and even a sea eagle out here?
    What’s wrong with me observing that it has happened before?
    What’s wrong with me pointing out to Gavin that his ACT July obversation and his snow obversation are not proving anything at all re AGW and the snow bit was incorrect?
    What’s wrong with me observing that your claims about Bazza are devoid of evidence?
    And why are you not answering the very simple questions I asked earlier?
    They are not trick questions, I am genuinely interested in your answers.

  366. Pikey says

    Hey Guys!
    The match is over.
    You have lost by a record margin.
    The fans went home just after half time.
    By rehashing the same drivel and insulting the winners you are showing what poor losers you are.
    Time to try another sport, another subject, where you may have some skills, but it certainly is not on these topics.
    How about the price of camels at Leigh Creek for Christmas or will we be hunting whales for food in 2075?
    Be about as relevant as the proceeding hazy arguments.
    Pikey.

  367. gavin says

    Deb; When ever I see the words “evidence based science” in a skeptic dialogue I want to run a mile cause its certain for the writer at least they aren’t familiar with the basics of the topic and I feel the same about writers referring to Bolt, Jo or Watts.

    SD; We had this climate report written by dozens of highly qualified researchers being poorly read in the first instance then trashed?

    JW; I should give up too given my fragile state today but I won’t on principle. Besides, who are you to determine whats what in any event? Is there a chance you may have the background to follow government funded climate science across various agencies? What do you have to say about trust given SD’s comments?

    This blog’s focus on evidence is the problem. Technique is the only thing I respect in an individuals analysis. Most of science is about delivering technique, not results. My career was based on having just enough skill to get by with out major blunders. One can’t know it all so we must learn to depend on others in the team.

    I got to help in different development projects by being adaptable towards other disciplines. From web processing machinery, thin film evaporation plants and associated steam generators etc I went to retro fitting environment monitoring systems without doing CBAs as most of it would become mandatory.

    In passing through I failed to imagine this technique as it was used in the dark. Fluid currents are used in the paper industry too so I should have guessed. In this case we are changing the direction of a thin sheet and it’s wet photographic coating over multiple loops.

    http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6533217.html.

    Slightly more scientific, the neural science “patch clamp” technique. I shared a lab bench with the lady (late wife) who developed single brain cells for this line of research. Visiting fellows doing microbiology usually took a while to clamp on.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_clamp

    Deb; while I remain essentially a metal worker who collects copper kettles and Swan Brand type teapots I’m often frustrated just fixing dents. Do I use a ball pene hammer or the round end on a wooden broom stick? Metal spinning is a craft that I must admire but can’t recreate for love nor money

  368. Johnathan Wilkes says

    gav
    “JW, Besides, who are you to determine whats what in any event?”

    Gavin, I know what I know, but claiming qualifications on a blog in general and on this site in particular seems to invite ridicule.

    You live on experiences way past their due date and totally irrelevant today.

    Quoting someone else whose ideology you happen to agree with while ignoring the other side, is meaningless, it simply brings us back to saying, my scientist is bigger than yours.

    Rambling on what you were talking about on the Sunday market with some obscure individual means nothing, but you do it every time and at the same time you and your cohorts dismissing SD’ and others’ personal observations.
    Pointing to cringe-worthy totally biased ABC programmes prove nothing.
    Get real man!

    You ignore and dismiss some papers because they happen to be on a website you deem inferior.
    If you don’t read it how do you know it’s no good?

    You are on my ignore list, nothing to gain from reading your drivel.

  369. Minister for Truth says

    I am with you Johnathan and Pikey. I reckon the only thing neanderthalian has been the antics of the GW protectionist society.They are too uninformed and inexperienced to know when they are beaten, and like a punch drunk boxer they will eventually collapse with yet more severe brain damage

    As for saying basil brush has forgotten more about CBA than Debbie knows thats a perfect example of the delusionality involved.As a self employed person employing others she would have a very sharp understanding of accounting which side of the ledger is nearest the window. Phlukey and his nong PS mates just spend the tax revenue raised by her efforts and sleep soundly at night not having to worry about cash flow and bank managers.

    But for a change of subject, the new world ranking for universities are out, so I thought I would have look at what criteria and weightings are used, and indeed do the rankings look at major areas like climate science/earth sciences.

    http://www.arwu.org/ARWUMethodology2010.jsp

    At first glance doesnt appear to be much wrong with the approach but I guess the devils are in the details.

    Heavy dependancy upon publishing (and hence peer review) and then citations by others. Not much on quality of teaching and what are they actually producing as graduated end products

    Hmmm thats for tomorrow

  370. toby says

    JW, I think the whole discussion around the NBN has given a useful look into the mindset of those who fall for CAGW. Clearly there is a strong correlation between NBN supporters in its current format and CAGW. A belief that platitudes are important and when it comes to using money, value does not matter. Nor even the need to protect tax payer funds and ensure value for money is achieved.

    Even the discussion of a social CBA vs a financial CBA is a stupid attempt to try and justify an expense at all costs.

    Since when would a real CBA not be considering the social cost/ benefit as well as the financial (however hard it may be to nail down all aspects of both), when government spending is being analysed? …or maybe that’s just naïve of me to expect the obvious?!

    I find it fascinating and very sad that anybody could argue that before tax payer funds are used there does not need to be any consideration of costs and benefits as well as opportunity costs.

    I m sure if we threw in something like boat arrivals these guys would also argue that Howard’s policies did not stop the boats, it was just that circumstances miraculously improved so there were no longer any push factors…..and they would think Gillard and greens justified in doing ntg for so long and probably now think that all of a sudden circumstances have changed to make Nauru viable again!! ( I personally have my doubts now its been left so long, there will be 4-5000 arrive before its even open!!). If I am wrong in that assumption I apologise, but my NBN assumption was correct.

  372. gavin says

    JW; all that proves you are just another cranky old commentator and dare I say it, SD and I have a great deal of mutual respect re our personal observations. Papers on WUWT etc don’t count despite what either of you say though and my science is bigger than yours, so lump it or go home. “cringe-worthy totally biased ABC programmes” ? Well I don’t depend on them but they are a bit quicker on the job than this blog.

    Deb; those birds are well within their normal range. Pizzey & Knight’s field guide give us the entire continent for the Silver Gull and Australian Pelican but N Cayley’s book keeps the gull to the coast. Both books have the White Breasted Sea Eagle ranging deep inland in S E Australia. We can argue frequency on a local basis but my experience with the birds in question and the books we are looking at very common and conspicuous groups.

  373. bazza says

    Going fishing. Hooks galore here. From the World Meteorological Organization -2011 was the 11th warmest since records began in 1850. It confirmed preliminary findings that 2011 was the warmest year on record with a La Niña, which has a cooling influence.
    – climate change accelerated in 2001-2010, which was the warmest decade ever recorded in all continents of the globe.
    –
    “record” – come in Robert with you invaluable perspective.
    “La Niña” – that proves it is only natural variability ( Debbie)
    “All continents” are they serious – perhaps SD ( she’ll be right mate) for this one did they include Antarctica. And what about the cooling in NW Australia where SD would have once camped about a bit.
    And it gets worse – they forgot to mention UHI is the likely cause of AGW ( Debbie again to straighten them out – what would they know – beliefs trump evidence.)
    And as for Debbies La Niña-related visitation from the seagulls – one could well be Jonathan Livingstone himself – check if it is the bold type? And Nev could come in with his bit on emissions still waiting for someone to respond to his numbers.
    Sorry nothing for Tobes but he is not responding to me ever ever again

  374. debbie says

    Gavin,
    I hope you’re feeling better today.
    The current flu that has been going around is making people very ill.
    I would imagine it is no longer dificult to spot snow from Canberra?

    On this particular comment I whole heartedly agree:

    ‘Most of science is about delivering technique, not results.’

    My question and my problem with all of this climate and enviro science stuff is simply this:

    Why, therefore, are we being forever told that ‘the science is settled’ and why is everything associated with these particular branches of science all geared to one AND ONLY ONE technique?

    As always my complaint is that most of this has absolutely nothing to do with the practical application of science and everything to do with politics.
    If it was about science then we would all be looking at all the different scientific techniques (including technical) that we could employ to improve the way we do things.
    That’s not what the ever increasing numbers of reports are about though are they?
    All of them are being used to justify a carbon credit scheme that will be administered and run by people whom we have all learned are incapable of running them efficiently.
    They don’t even follow very basic rules associated with responsible fiscal management.
    And sadly….even though there are many things that could be done, especially in heavily urbanised areas….but also in areas like the MDB and the lower lakes….we are not going to look at any of those options….they’re not in the ‘terms of reference’.
    We are all being herded in only one direction by this insane political PR machine that has hijacked the ‘science’ and used it inappropriately.

  376. Robert says

    “’record’” – come in Robert with you invaluable perspective.”

    You’re a big boy now, or you’re never going to be. I’m sure you know a little of the world before Lady Gaga by now.

    Nonetheless, thanks for reminding me things have warmed a bit since the mid 19th century. I suppose with the SL levels trending up long before that, something had to give. It’s always good to be reminded of these things, even with an overlay of klutzy irony.

    And, bazza, thanks for not saying “counterfactual” one more time. A small mercy, but much appreciated.

  377. debbie says

    Still waiting for you to answer questions Bazza.
    Still waiting for you to engage in a discussion rather than scoffing and blustering and attempting to prove you can be a bully.
    The scoffing and blustering and attempted character assassinations is no longer amusing…it is becoming entirely predictable and boring, boring, boring.

  378. toby says

    JW, I think he should just be HWSBI ( he who should be ignored).

    When I was 7 i visited disney world and had the pleasure of watching the ” yogi bear jamborie” and i will never forget this quote from big al “if you aint got ntg nice to say, then dont say nothin at all’!”

    so as per usual i have deleted what i wanted to say….well almost all of it. HWSBI!

  380. toby says

    HWSBI is not you Baz….. Im sure at some point i will be unable to ignore something you have said, and i do at least read your comments.

  381. spangled drongo says

    Deal with the message gav, instead of shooting the messenger.

    Ya know, the ball, not the man.

    Same with Wattsup, septic science or anyone.

    Even Wired does that.

  382. Ian Thomson says

    Hey JW,
    ‘ Neanderthal’ comments. The last reconstruction I saw of a Neanderthal head would, with a lot of hair added, look just like Mr Albert Einstein. You’ve just been given high praise by Luke. I hope you are impressed , mate.
    Bazza, yes sea eagles etc do range inland. Birds have a habit of FLYING to find food and sea eagles are partial to wood ducks. ( Bet they love the stupid, shallow carp too).
    What Debbie and others are trying to impress on Govts and City boobs is that , right now, there are millions of hectares of abnormal swamp etc out in AUSTRALIA , breeding millions of “endangered ” creatures.
    When it does sink in to City people, they may stop the politicians buying up inland properties, to protect stationary birds- then removing all the water storages which caused them to be there. Then giving feral predators free range.

  383. gavin says

    SD; what you have to see is that whole heap of Ridley type rhetoric should apply to your side exclusively, but I won’t be disappointed if you can’t .

    JW. the key issue with yesterday’s snow was a sudden temp inversion caused by heavy rain. Rain, not snow was the order of the day.

    Now, lets look at another frequent skeptic complaint, our ABC. Tonight we watched a gardening story about fixing an old floodway in Ringwood Vic with some intelligent landscaping. I knew about that problem almost fifty years ago when we lived in Oliver Street just off the new highway. Some man made problems take a long while for a community to recognize and fix.

    Another story Saturday Landline involved our hop growing industry and big changes in it’s ownership and location. A feature was changes in regard to evolving beer tastes but who can predict that outcome today? Marketing or science is the question.

  385. Robert says

    You’re so right, SD. The whirlygigs need to be banned in most places and dismantled except where owned and used privately. Medieval heaps of junk, just like low temp washing water and low flush dunnies. Waste, damage, expense, inefficiency and hazard: everything our Green Betters would recommend as “sustainable”.

  386. bazza says

    As Jonathan said wisely ” I know what I know, but claiming qualifications on a blog in general and on this site in particular seems to invite ridicule. You live on experiences way past their due date and totally irrelevant today.”

  387. Johnathan Wilkes says

    bazzard
    Keep on yapping little doggie, your quote above is as fraudulent as any of your other claims.

  389. Johnathan Wilkes says

    bazzyboy
    I know you are busting your tiny brain to find out what’s wrong with your quote.
    I’ll be kind to you.

    Quotation marks should only enclose the actual quotation, not your additional comment, my boy.

    Apropos, not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve not yet passed it, just turned 51 in February.
    Amazing how far out of our way we go to help an unfortunate fellow being even the undeserving ones.

  390. gavin says

    SD; I visited your link and after reading it through I was left wondering, 1; what else has your author done in wind on the internet, 2; what is the average turbine producing, 4, 8, or 25% of it’s rated capacity?

    Seeking more experienced wind commentary, I found this investment group. They buy what we had!

    http://www.guohua.com.cn/english/xsgs_01.jsp

    Silly, or not?

  391. Johnathan Wilkes says

    bazzy
    In case you are still confused, the second sentence of your post is to be considered as your own comment directed back at me.
    Hope it clears it up for you?
    No?

    Oh well never mind you’ll get it one day. Or not.

  392. Debbie says

    ROFL!
    Bazza,
    you are seriously your own worst enemy.
    Ian Thompson,
    well said.
    Inland Australia has gone ballistic.
    Bazza et al are still operating on the assumption that it is a desolate dust bowl out here and that we killed all the birdies and the froggies.
    Not only are all the supposed extinct and endangered species back in outstanding numbers, the coastal birdies are visiting too.
    Has it possibly occured to Bazza et al to ask the Tasmanians who possess generational knowledge, whether the same might apply to those fish?
    There’s a novel idea.

  393. cohenite says

    luke, and it seems, bazza, are great recyclers; they put up a paper or point, watch it get torn to shreds, go away and sulk and then after a decorous period of time, resubmit the same drivel again.

    For instance, bazza says:

    “From the World Meteorological Organization -2011 was the 11th warmest since records began in 1850. It confirmed preliminary findings that 2011 was the warmest year on record with a La Niña, which has a cooling influence.
    – climate change accelerated in 2001-2010, which was the warmest decade ever recorded in all continents of the globe.”

    Go and read McShane and Wyner bazza.

  394. gavin says

    Debs on the ball. A few years ago my cousin was one of several co authors in a new illustrated book about coastal fish species. Most of the work was done by a hand full of recreational divers who saw the need for a greater public interest in our lesser know sea inhabitants and their protection. This chap was also involved in topside recreational development and has pursued his interest in native orchids etc since leaving the PS.

    The precedent for public science is well established in Tasmania and I have no doubt it will play a major part in climate monitoring as it becomes more wide spread in the Australian scene. Maria Island as a monitoring station is just the beginning.

    Following SD, I returned to Judith Curry seeking recent papers. Can I be the first to suggest this lady probably makes more from writing than research today? This hunch is only based on the scientific flurry surrounding her base and the primary author, Dr. Peter Webster of “Are Category 4 and 5 hurricanes increasing in number?”

    http://www.wunderground.com/education/webster.asp?MR=1

    A much larger concern is covered by a review here re “The Battle over Climate Science”

    http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/must-read-battle-over-climate-science.html

    Do we ever trust anything US based given this battle, politics v climate science?

  395. spangled drongo says

    gav, you might have visited my link but you didn’t absorb anything. The graph of wind produced electricity is like a comb and consumption can’t run like that. The net production is almost useless and shockingly expensive in big systems.

    As Robert says, in private small systems with storage it can work [solar too, as in satellites] but it needs so much back-up in the real world that it is just a scam.

    Also if you were interested in Judith Curry’s progress you would know that with time and detailed investigation she has become ever more sceptical of warmist science.

    So we should shoot messenger-countries as well as messenger-people now too?

  397. Debbie says

    Politics versus climate science? 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
    ROFL!
    Your problem Gavin is that the climate and the environment cares no more about your opinion of politics, or the USA, or Judith Curry or Manne, or big tobacco or tweed coats or even psychology than anyone else’s OPINIONS.
    It also has zero respect for long term averages and arbitary calendar points.
    That link is more of the same political hoo haa and has NOTHING to do with science.
    I noticed you missed the point about solution/technique?
    You also totally missed Ian’s point about the birds.
    In the MDBP it is ‘accepted’ as scientific fact that the numbers have declined to an alarming level.
    The ONE AND ONLY technique/solution to solve this alarming problem is for the FEDS to step in and control land & water by doing such brilliant things as shutting down prime land and drowning river red gums.
    Seems the Kingston’s of the world don’t know that birds have WINGS and if there is a drought in the MDB they fly off somewhere else?
    They rather liked the man made water conservation works during that time.
    Strangely they weren’t all that fond of the ‘iconic’ sites where ‘the scientists’ were counting them.
    They’re pretty chuffed at the moment and they don’t even mind their coastal cousins dropping in for a visit.

  398. Neville says

    Good info from Watts , explains why wind energy actually increases co2 emissions. The important point is that so called mitigation of AGW is the greatest con and fraud of the last 100 years.

    Because of use of cheaper gas the second biggest emiter on the planet ( USA) is almost back to 1990 levels of co2 emissions.
    This is achieved by new technology and human resources and much cheaper energy. Around the planet solar energy to the grid is a standing joke and even added to other renewables adds little for an enormous expense.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/18/mcintyres-talk-in-london-plus-the-uks-tilting-at-windmills-may-actually-increase-co2-emissions-over-natural-gas/#more-69484

  400. Debbie says

    I like the ‘idea’ of wind power. Us redneck country bumkins have been using it for years. We have also been using gravity for years.
    Wind power works fine for specific local/personal purposes like pumping water from shallow underground sources to fill water troughs, stock/house dams.
    However, when we want to do some serious pumping of either ground water or surface water, to do rather important stuff like produce food & fibre on a larger scale, wind power doesn’t measure up for 2 very important reasons:
    1) It is unreliable and
    2) To make it more reliable the CBA equation is totally out of whack. TOTALLY!

    So, for us, even though we like the ‘idea’, it doesn’t add up. If we were just feeding ourselves, it would be fine.
    I also notice that Bazza avoided that ‘conversion’ question re feedlots which suffers from similar problems.
    It’s a good ‘idea’ too.

  401. Robert says

    Neville, it’s a worry when a daffy leftist rag like Spiegel recognises the problem. Of course, they don’t headline the real cause – one has to read into the article for that – but it makes you realise how radically we need to change track in Oz. We’re coal and uranium rich…and pensioners have to worry about turning on their heating and a/c? For this we gouge the Darling Downs?

    Here’s the funniest bit:

    “Producers of batteries and other emergency energy sources are benefiting most from the disruptions.”

    Environmentalism truly represents the death of Conservation.

  402. Minister for Truth says

    “Environmentalism truly represents the death of Conservation.”

    Not so.

    Its been the death of common sense, aided and abetted by moonlighting scientific advisers to environmental extremists, whilst already being paid out of the public purse.

  403. bazza says

    Debbie, you have incorrectly attributed assumptions/comments to me I never made. Pls fix.
    “Bazza et al are still operating on the assumption that it is a desolate dust bowl out here and that we killed all the birdies and the froggies.”

    “I also notice that Bazza avoided that ‘conversion’ question re feedlots which suffers from similar problems”

  404. spangled drongo says

    The Law of Group Polarization:

    “In a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments. For example, people who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion, to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm; people who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to insist on severe measures to prevent global warming. This general phenomenon — group polarization – has many implications for economic, political, and legal institutions. It helps to explain extremism, “radicalization,” cultural shifts, and the behavior of political parties and religious organizations; it is closely connected to current concerns about the consequences of the Internet; it also helps account for feuds, ethnic antagonism, and tribalism.”

    Just so true.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/18/the-reason-for-the-polarization-of-the-global-warming-issue/

  407. bazza says

    Your song Debbie, you cant make up stuff as you go along and you dont have the guts to apologise.

    Isn’t it rich?
    Isn’t it queer?
    Losing my timing this late
    In my career?
    And where are the clowns?
    Quick, send in the clowns.
    Don’t bother – they’re here.

  408. gavin says

    Any snow, if it ever was in the ACT has all but disappeared. Walked up our hill to the nearest trig point and there is very little on the horizon. Its only on the far western edge, possibly Mt Franklin and there is nothing close to Canberra. The Cootamundra scrub is flowering so winter is over.

  409. Debbie says

    Gavin,
    Wattle week is the first week of August, there’s a reason for that you know.
    All the wattles flower in August and every year the Cootamundras are among the most spectacular.
    They do particularly well in your neck of the woods.
    You are sort of putting yourself out on a limb there by making such predictions.
    Let’s see what the rest of August does shall we?
    Spring doesn’t officially begin till Sept.
    But having lived in Canberra I would also observe that quite often in Sept it feels more like winter than spring.
    Bazza,
    I’m still waiting.
    BTW the ‘conversion’ re feedlots explanation hasn’t happened so not sure why that one is a problem for you?

  410. Debbie says

    Or maybe Bazza I could explain it this way:
    Whenever you point your finger, there are 3 others pointing straight back at you.
    Or perhaps:
    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
    Or perhaps:
    Let he who is without sin cast the first stone:
    Or perhaps look up the concept of karma?
    I also like:
    What goes round comes round.
    May I respectfully suggest you review your own MO?

  411. spangled drongo says

    “China is buying our wind. As I asked before, is it only 4, 8 or 25% of installed capacity that counts?”

    Gav, I can’t see that on your link. You better cut and paste the specifics. How could China buy our W/G elec?

    And if you are only getting a small fraction of what you pay for, and have to build big gas plants which have to be run at high production for when the wind unexpectedly crumps out [ie, back-up] then your energy costs will multiply. It’s called cost/benefit and where I come from that COUNTS.

    But the dumbest part of it all is that the net result of this backed-up wind energy produces more CO2 [wind is supposed to emit almost no CO2, FFS] than if you dispensed with wind completely and just used that gas back-up plus a bit extra.

    This backed-up wind is also costing 4 times the price of gas.

    Comprendez?

  412. spangled drongo says

    To spell it out a little more, if renewable energy costs 4 times the price of FF energy PLUS produces more CO2 that gives it a cost/benefit of at most one quarter of the cost/benefit of fossil fuel energy.

  413. bazza says

    spangled, that research you quote on polarisation is not seen as true in general . Sure, you often get biased assimilation but not strong evidence of polarisation .

  415. gavin says

    SD; there is going to be a lot of movement re wind farms, owners and operators. You need to follow Siemens, Vestas etc and Asian owned companies tendering for the next wave of major wind projects like the one off the UK with generator blades as LONG as an Airbus is wide.

    My previous comment referred to the break up of partnerships both sides of Bass Strait with wind projects sold off to raise further capital and there is more,

    http://www.eco-business.com/news/ratch-australia-plans-to-spend-a1-billion-on-acquisitions-wind/

  416. cohenite says

    “The Cootamundra scrub is flowering so winter is over.”

    And Xmas is coming gav so get your red suit out of mothballs. And forget about wind poower, it has as much viability as santa’s sled.

    Anyhow Pickering is still struggling I see:

    http://lpickering.net/item/8305

  417. Debbie says

    So Gavin,
    Is it just foreign partnership and/or ownership of these projects that is bothering you?
    I agree that is a bit concerning, particularly if it involves subsidy money….but is it the most concerning aspect of these wind projects?
    That particular concern is being highlighted in a number of areas BTW….seeing as we raised Tassie and fish at this post….one of the major concerns about that super trawler in Tassie is that it is partly financed by EC subsidy money and a Tas Govt partnership and will be directly competing with our non subsidised fishing industry.
    Not the only place it’s happening.
    I don’t object to foreign partnerships based on sound economic/market principles but I must admit I get a trifle nervous when subsidies and Govt partnerships are involved.

  418. spangled drongo says

    gav, that has nothing to do with the viability of wind power.

    That just emphasizes how you can depress the value of a good asset and boost the value of a dud with govt intervention so as to make them both attractive to cashed-up foreigners.

    Painting a diamond brown only makes it a better buy but putting a gold cigar-band on a turd doesn’t make it a good smoke.

    cohers, good to see Pickering getting the story out. SFSG.

  419. gavin says

    Glad you raised that super trawler issue Deb. It’s been on our ABC for a while and there are updates since this story

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-15/super-trawler-debate/4200114

    We don’t traditionally eat Jack Mackrel or bait fish from Bass Strait waters but obviously somebody else wants them for something and my guesses were salmon or tuna farm food and fish paste for the starving masses overseas.

    Who do we support, local fishermen, fish farmers or other private enterprise as supported by taxpayers through our fisheries management?

  420. gavin says

    Oh SD! Asian enterprise buying anyone’s turds? You don’t know how a Chinese family business works these days.

  421. Ian Thomson says

    Why on Earth would China want to buy gazillions of tonnes of Oz gas and coal, on long term contracts ?
    They have all this alternative energy coming online. Windmills, mirrors.
    Now they are going to help build windmills bigger than bloody Buicks with wings, elsewhere.

    How about someone gets real here . For my place – out a bit, no woolpress or welder or heavy pumping stuff going overnight , yep windmills and mirrors – with emergency back up .
    For Leeton, Melbourne, Griffith, Broken Hill, etc — The Chinese one should be our solution , ‘power’.
    Can’t work here though , because Australian gas is over $1.30 a litre here . It gets cheaper, the closer it gets to China. Down below 2 cents a litre .
    Both sides of Canberra think that is admirable. They would be considered traitors in most educated countries. Bye Bye Oz.

  422. spangled drongo says

    But these turds come with gold plated govt guarantees that will provide a good earner for the owner.

    The people who are stuck with the sticky stuff are the Australian taxpayers.

    If you are one of those you should be very concerned.

  423. John Sayers says

    “Comment from: Debbie August 19th, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    Gavin,
    Wattle week is the first week of August, there’s a reason for that you know.
    All the wattles flower in August and every year the Cootamundras are among the most spectacular.
    They do particularly well in your neck of the woods.
    You are sort of putting yourself out on a limb there by making such predictions.
    Let’s see what the rest of August does shall we?
    Spring doesn’t officially begin till Sept.
    But having lived in Canberra I would also observe that quite often in Sept it feels more like winter than spring.
    Bazza,
    I’m still waiting.
    BTW the ‘conversion’ re feedlots explanation hasn’t happened so not sure why that one is a problem for you?”

  426. Johnathan Wilkes says

    John
    “wish I could edit” yes it would be handy.
    Use notepad or word to compose your posts and then cut and paste.

  428. spangled drongo says

    Filed under: How to waste more hard-earned taxpayer funds or: One good turd deserves another.

  429. spangled drongo says

    As Graeme No3 said at JoNo:

    “In the meantime;
    On a cold winter’s night there is nothing like the warm glow of a solar panel to keep you warm.

    That, or a blazing fire of bundled $20 notes, which might be cheaper.
    (Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Sarc.)”

  430. Debbie says

    Good spot Ian Thomson,
    There is an alarming lack of common sense operating re power generation.
    The numbers don’t add up.
    Pickering’s cartoon spotted it too.
    People are opening their energy bills in shock.
    The pensioners out here are being asked to pay $200 to have someone come around and explain the govt sponsored ‘power pack’ to them.
    It tells them to do stuff they’ve always done and supplies them with things like sausages for the bottom of their doors and energy saving light bulbs which they could buy for a couple of bucks at the local hardware store or supermarket.
    It almost looks like what most ordinary people would call a scam!

  432. Minister for Truth says

    Hmmmm

    Cohenite : I wouldnt say that Pickering was stuggling at all, given what is now on his web site, and Bolts and others as well, and, given the inadequacy of the statement from Slater & Gordon.

    Why would one set up an Incorporated Association that uses the name of entity that is a client, without setting up a file, and further, why would you not get the entity, and very same client, whose name is being used, be consulted.

    Thirdly who were the office bearers of the Incorprated Association and who audited the accounts.

    As for Gillard complaining about the vicious/malicious nature of blogs, well I would have thought that the PM and the Parliament, has already set the standard.

    No wonder they want to muzzle the media and curb our freedoms.

    Hypocrisy anyone?

  433. Debbie says

    Interesting quote from that link SD.

    “And I must admit that those adjustments constituting virtually all of the warming signal in the last 40 years is disconcerting. When “global warming” only shows up after the data are adjusted, one can understand why so many people are suspicious of the adjustments.”

  434. Debbie says

    This is cute too:
    These numbers are simply not adding up.
    What is being said and then what is happening in reality is not even remotely connected.
    I wonder if these people actually understand that ‘cutting’ bills would actually mean that the bill would be CHEAPER than before????????
    I suspect that they think it means that it could have been even more expensive than it already is???

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/we-have-the-power-to-cut-our-bills/story-e6frfhqf-1226448703596

  435. bazza says

    Interesting on ther temperature adjustments.? Try going beyond interesting to curiosity even understanding then comes learning. From NOAA:
    “Applying the Time of Observation adjustment (black line) resulted in approximately a 0.3F warming from the late 1960’s to the 1990’s. The shift from Cotton Region Shelters to the Maximum/Minimum Thermometer System in the mid-1980’s is clearly evident in the difference between the TOBS and the MMTS time series (red line). This adjustment created a small warming in the US annual time series during the mid to late 1980’s. Application of the Station History Adjustment Procedure (yellow line) resulted in an average increase in US temperatures, especially from 1950 to 1980. During this time, many sites were relocated from city locations to airports and from roof tops to grassy areas. This often resulted in cooler readings than were observed at the previous sites. When adjustments were applied to correct for these artificial changes, average US temperature anomalies were cooler in the first half of the 20th century and effectively warmed throughout the later half. Filling in missing data (blue line) produced cooler temperatures prior to 1915. Adjustments to account for warming due to the effects of urbanization (purple line) cooled the time series an average of 0.1F throughout the period of record. “

  436. Luke says

    Debbie bleats – ANSWER MY QUESTIONS – sorry Debs you gave up your right to play seriously when you wouldn’t engage with us on forecasting. Couldn’t get a little peepy from you – as you don’t concern yourself with details. So we’re not into details now girly.

    Cohenite pretends he’s a legend in his own lifetime. So tedious but he does the part well. I respect Cohers actually. Good quality denialism with funny sledging. Needs a few papers in GRL with Stockers then he’d be dangerous. Maybe he’s even a nice bloke if you get him off climate and politics.

    Looks like Wilksey has blown a cog. Fair enuff too. Bazza is pretty good isn’t he?

    I just dropped in for a quickie but looks like just the usual squabbling. Sigh remember the old days and really funny acidic comments from Motty, rabid stuff from Birdy and a thorough ream out from S Short. Sigh …. and that stockbroker and banker bloke ….

    Abbott will be in soon. You’ll have nothing to talk about then. Have you planned for your retirements?

    By good time for lefties and middle-ists of course – back to pure hatred and ridding our selves of the Tory plague by all means possible
    (big time buyer’s regret in Qld! – oh well)

  437. Robert says

    Luke, bazza is at least comprehensible when he’s cutting and pasting. However, his original work still reads like this:

    “Interesting on ther temperature adjustments.? Try going beyond interesting to curiosity even understanding then comes learning.”

    But Gavin is pretty good, isn’t he?

  438. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Yup Luke, bazza is good… for a laugh that is!

    But even that is sad, since it’s not nice to laugh at someone who can’t help being the way they are.
    Before the PC era one could use a short and succinct expression.

    And no, I have not blown a cog, just can’t stand BS.

  439. Minister for Truth says

    Hi Johnathan W, have you noticed that the drop in commentator on comments, is the only one whose debating skills and subject matter knowledge is so poor that he is the only one, on this thread at least, who has had to resort to using the F word.

    ….and that comes on top of his frequent use of useless/irrelvant citations that he clearly has not read.

    ….and inability to answer questions

    No wonder Newman has problems.

  440. Debbie says

    ROFL! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
    So Luke,
    While noting you’re STILL avoiding some very simple questions….that don’t require much detail BTW….
    Is it more to do with politics after all?

    Bazza,
    I agree that a great deal of work has been done in an attempt to adjust figures to make them credible.
    In the process we have found out more about some of the natural variables that heavily influence our climate/weather patterns….that is not a bad thing.
    The work re CO2 and CAGW however is far from ‘settled’…..and therefore it is being misused by the politics (IMHO)

    Luke…your problem with me re forecasting was the negative, dismissive way you stated your opinions.
    I have since answered that question at later posts when you decided to ask it in a civil manner.
    It is not my problem that you don’t like the answer Luke….it is still my answer….IF it delivers on its early promises, I would imagine I would use it in a similar manner that I use sites like BoM and YR….that implies therefore that I LIKE the way sites like BoM present that type of information.

    I also don’t judge my rights, my abilities or my pass/fail capabilities on your say so Luke….why on earth would I do that?
    Considering how you judge….if I actually took any of that to heart….I would think I was an old white conservative male, who flies around with only a right wing, who attends secret TEA drinking parties dressed in tweed coats, who has a very red sunburnt neck, who is funded by mysterious vested interests, who doesn’t care about poor innocent someone/something or others, who thinks Abbot is our saviour, who doesn’t know anything at all about running a business, who invests in an evil social destroying industry that just operates from behind only one single desk etc, etc, etc, etc….. 🙂 🙂 🙂
    Oh….and of course….
    I’m also a ‘girlie’?
    Chuckle…..I actually get a laugh out of the ‘girlie’ one….but still not a sound way to judge….and a trifle ‘sexist’ don’t you think?
    Along with my earlier suggestion to Bazza…
    May I respectfully suggest you review and judge your own MO?

  441. gavin says

    SD, I’m quite impressed by your latest writer at WUWT, however I can’t pass it as science. I hope you weren’t sucked in, but if you were, stand still while I get right into it after lunch.

  442. cohenite says

    Minister for Truth; good points about the Association which Gillard set up; it is de rigueur for solicitors to set up a file and when setting up an account do a search of the named owner of the account; a simple search of Wilson’s association would have spilled the beans that it had nothing to do with the AWU immediately.

  444. Johnathan Wilkes says

    MoT

    I don’t know what happened to Luke, true he was always a bit abrupt but concerning science matters used to be quite reasonable.

    I think fighting a losing battle had got to him.
    Still, no call for swearing and the constant flow of abuse he is only capable of lately.

    I also wonder about the cavalier attitude Ms Gillard showed when setting up the association’s account.
    Can’t help wondering how she could miss the telling signs? Just as well she got out of lawyering.

  445. Minister for Truth says

    Cohenite,

    Thanks for your comments.

    Tell me, as someone with more legal training than myself can you explain how it is that JG can say she has done nothing wrong, and thus may on that account get away without being sanctioned in some way. I would have thought that she is as culpable/liable for not having done the right thing, ie wrong by ommission.

    Its not as though the practices, as you have described, both in terms of opening a file, and in registering an Incorporated Association are that difficult, being almost menial. A 30 year old lawyer, and partner, should have had no difficulty either performing those tasks themselves, or delegating to an office junior.

    I would have thought that she, and S&G, should also have had a duty of care to see that it was at least referred to the AWU for their concurrence, or other wise. After all the AWU was already a client.

    Why wasnt this also a matter that should have been referred to the Law Society/Council, or whatever the relevant body is, for possible breaches of professional standards.

    This smells….even though it is some years since it all occurred…. it still smells.

  446. gavin says

    Deb; Although Bazza kicked off first, I want to claim again that UHI is largely a condition for the skeptics. Also this latest probe linked by SD only takes us back to a simple minded campaign aimed at the gullible. Every time I see raw Met temp data I feel annoyed and want to get rid of all the noise immediately. Back when I managed lots of controllers and recorders on a daily basis I could usually do something positive to fix it and so steady the outputs. This amount of noise would obscure a signal transmitted by radio too. I minded that lot for the teams with probably the best signal analyser in the business.

    Going back to Watts, the only substance is here

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/04/ushcn-surface-temperatures-1973-2012-dramatic-warming-adjustments-noisy-trends/

    SD; what we should be discussing is this

    ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/techreports/Technical%20Report%20NCDC%20No12-01-Distribution.pdf

  447. Neville says

    MFT this smells a lot to me as well. If I was in her shoes and was innocent of any wrong doing, I would have taken action against Shane Dowling of KKOA years ago and Larry Pickering four months ago.

    These two blokes are not pulling any punches and ussually these type of sites can suffer legal action for less serious infringements against a person.

    She is the PM of OZ so why leave this “nonsense” up in the air and not demand legal action against these two men.
    Of course Pickering told Hinch that he hopes they do sue because that would open a real can of worms.

    At least it seems that even some Fairfax reporters are not convinced after her attack against Paul Kelly yesterday.

  448. cohenite says

    MFT; opening a file for EVERY matter is standard practice; the reason why EVERY solicitor does it is to cover their backside; contemperaneous notes are the BEST defence against a client complaint.

    Gillard, which ever way you look at it, was hopelessly compromised by her relationship with Wilson, who, it appears is an archetypal union man; on that basis, her lack of professional judgement alone, would make her unfit to continue in legal practice, at least at a senior position; and here she is running the nation.

  450. Debbie says

    So Gavin?
    Are you ‘denying’ UHI?
    I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that’s not what you meant.
    Bazza also claims I argued that UHI kills AGW. Which would be incorrectly/assuming comments to me I never made don’t you think?
    I also think if you pay attention, that SD is pointing out that the ‘science’ is being muddied by the politics.
    My objection is similar, but I am judging political performance in relation to the stated goals in the Political PR.
    I am not a fan of the behaviour of either side in this polarised debate.
    The PR spin from both sides is simple minded gumph aimed at the gullible.
    It is all geared to one and only one technnique/solution which has little to do with using science appropriately.
    I also feel rather sorry for those who are genuinely trying to fill their job descriptions. They have been shamelessly abused.

  451. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Cohenite
    “here she is running the nation” (bit of a boldness to keep baazyboy happy)

    Of course that is a matter of opinion?

    As to keeping good records? Anyone with any financial or third party responsibility would be mad not to do it. There must be a very good reason why she did not, and no, being “young and naive” won’t cut it!

  452. cohenite says

    Gillard opened a bank account to a trust beneficiary at Wilson’s behest. The trust had a similar name to the AWU so that allegedly Wilson could demand businesses put money into the trust account.

    Some issues:

    Did Gillard do this without opening a file? if so, why?

    Did Gillard do this without doing a search of the trust? If so why not?

    Where are the bank accounts?

    Which bank was it?

    Were tax returns made on behalf of the trust; or was it a tax exempt trust; if so did Gillard apply for tax exempt status?

    Were any of Slater and Gordon’s trust accounts associated with the trust account?

    etc, etc.

  453. gavin says

    Deb; I am probably the only expert on this blog when it comes to muddling measurements. There was a place where I had to monitor both the air conditioning in a rather large office block and all the environment issues in a large urban factory. The hotness or coldness can vary with the person or the plant. For instance Deep freezers are quite different to a whole sale warehouse holding bulky fiber goods to be sold by weight.

    When challenged over a faulty measurement the technician has several options, change the instrument or review the measurement procedures. A third option is to interview the other witness and that is often the most difficult operation because it’s all about one’s perception. In the office situation I would change the draft towards the less squawky ladies. In the factory it was more about getting rid of the moisture and avoiding due points and rotting the place. With the radios, I tried to keep one beside the test gear to instantly check any doubt with a particular channel but that’s the one our users always wanted.

    In any doubtful situation such as we have with Met data, the first thing to do is find another reference and it could be just one good site to which all others are re calibrated. However an external reference provides a proper platform for guessing the direction of errors in the matrix i.e. glaciers melting, sea level rising therefore we thinks temperatures may be rising. Wrong?

    Avoid this skeptic jargon. In another field I come across, retro, shabby chic, vintage and gorgeous all stretch words in a campaign. I looked into brainwashing techniques and mass hysteria as a youth cause I wished to know what kept the great wars going.

    IMO Some commentators here want to run similar themes

  454. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Cohenite, extremely good questions.

    Who is going to ask them?
    It’s frustrating to listen to journalists interviewing politicians and hardly a relevant question asked, unless they want to bury the polly, and at the moment it seems like every journo is running scared from asking them.

  456. Robert says

    Well, cohers, those really are good questions. I guess now is the time for very specific questions like that. I’ll be paying attention if you wish to elaborate more.

    Lately, commenters here have been dismissive of the opinions of an ocean yacht specialist on currents and the opinions of a successful irrigation farmer on water, climate and species. Funny that.

  457. Debbie says

    Gavin,
    Despite your inference I avoid PR jargon, sceptic or otherwise whenever possible.
    I want to know about those tecniques/solutions.
    If they are not delivering on their loudly touted outcomes then I question why we are being herded in that direction.
    What are we fixing?

  458. gavin says

    Seems others have dropped off SD, so what is wrong with this?

    ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/plots/msu_amsu_channel_tlt_trend_map_v03_2_1979_2008.png

    Deb; I do deny UHI but along these lines. Calibration and other station reading errors going way back will mask urban impacts. I give you about +/- 2% of instrument range to start with. Even in bad cases there is no direct observation of UHI over time and those far flung Met stations were never designed to find it.

    Alcohol thermometers are used for cooking food etc because their safe. Mercury thermometers were good enough for science labs, industry and me but what did the US and Aussie weather bods have?

  459. Debbie says

    So Gavin,
    you don’t think millions of acres of black bitumen, acres & acres of land clearing, millions of petrol or deisel driven engines, 1000s of GL of water runoff, acres and acres of rooftops, millions of air conditioning units, huge bundles of skyscrapers etc etc etc. . . . all concentrated in one area. . . have a local effect on the way the natural environment and the natural atmosphere would normally behave?
    Seriously?
    Because that is the UHI effect.

  461. Johnathan Wilkes says

    The mind boggles.
    I thought one uses an instrument to measure something wherever that something happens to be.
    After measurement we compare the results produced at different locations collected at the same time, if they differ we look for a reason.

    Using the same instruments available at the time I would have guessed the errors would be around the same, therefor any difference could only be due to location.

    Obviously I, in my naivety was completely wrong, we learn something new (useless as it may be) every day.

  462. Debbie says

    Nope JW,
    Makes perfect sense to me.
    It even happens in my patch.
    The thermometer in the pergola reads differently to the thermometer outside the shed which reads differently to the one on the header which reads differently to the ‘official’ temp at Leeton, which is different to the ‘official’ one at Griffith which is different to the one at Griffith Airport and different again at my parents and parents in law and different again at my cousin’s place.
    They’re all within 40 kms of each other but most of them closer than that.
    The difference, especially on those + 40degree days is often way, way more than +/- 2 degrees.
    Seems to me that location would obviously have something to do with it. 🙂
    But what would I know?
    Like you, I learn something new every day.

  463. gavin says

    You’v hit it Deb with your “The difference, especially on those + 40degree days is often way, way more than +/- 2 degrees”.

    As an instrument maker, I found that standard lab grade thermometers could vary every which way like my own but there was a simple rule for all, freezing point and boiling point of water soon sorted them out. It gets trickier for larger ranges though. Eventually one develops trust in something and you can stake your reputation on it. Usually it’s a system not an instrument though.

    At home I rely on a fresh D cell to check my analogue meter as I go on shuffling used batteries down the chain of duties. Needle response on a basic multimeter is a crude indicator of battery power. Professionally though I managed a large pool of rechargeable packs for two way comms and so got to evaluate a series of propriety automatic batch battery recovery units (deep cycling and pulsing) that employed increasing levels of intelligence i.e. CBA every day.

    Back to atmosphere: Consider the frozen warehouse at minus 40 C and drying hood where everything is too hot to touch and air streams fierce enough to blow a thermometer out of your hand. Evaporation rates were hand checked every day to monitor system inefficiencies as filters blocked.

    Thermometer readings are never stable so it’s always plan B for extremes and don’t forget that may have something to do with air speed besides bulb thinness.

  464. Debbie says

    But Gavin?
    What about UHI and location?
    I believe in good systems too. It’s important when you run a business.
    But you appear to be missing the point of my comment?

  466. gavin says

    Deb; you can’t use a Met grade max min thermometer to measure temperature gradients on site. Therefore weather station minders had no way of assessing site impacts over time on their recordings and most would be blissfully unaware of UHI issues if they existed at all.

    There is another point too, most of us can gauge a reasonable temp differential at close range with our cheeks i.e. an inbuilt sensitivity that is quite useful in protecting our bodies. However none of us would detect long term issues like UHI or climate change on our own. Naturally lulled into submission all the time by our own submissions hey.

    Now you have to believe me when I say the air round an urban or industrial site is pretty stable when compared with daily bureau points because I could often track an area during my own routines.

    Ambient is difficult to assess in turbulence though so depending on the day I had to repeat spot checks outside over and over before starting with the inside. We were assessing both heat loss and cooling round plant and process all the time, typically hospitals, factories, refineries and their office blocks. Capturing temp gradients in breezeways becomes an art.

    It would require a site expert to fix individual Met station errors and there are none in blogshere sorry

  467. Robert says

    Thanks for link, Minister. I’ll check when time permits. Smith has been impressive. He’s as dogged as Gillard herself, but in a good way.

    One caution about the growing scandal. Many of those investigating don’t trust Larry Pickering, and I’d say it’s with good reason. I’ve never liked the man. Just saying.

  470. Neville says

    Gav what is the difference in temp in Tokyo and the surrounding countryside and ditto London?

  471. cohenite says

    Beenstock has revised and published his paper on cointegration which establishes that CO2 plays little role in temperature movement with solar dominating:

    http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/3/561/2012/esdd-3-561-2012.html

    Also of interest, David Stockwell and Ken Stewart will have their analysis of the defective HQ temperature network which was used by the BOM prior to the publication the ACORN temperature network, published this week.

    The further work which needs to be done is an analysis of whether ACORN has corrected the manifest problems in the HQ network; to do that ACORN will have to release their code, which they have promised they will do.

    Perhaps luke can use his good offices with the BOM to arrange for them to send their code to Stockwell?

  472. Debbie says

    They’re usually called obsevations Luke.
    Seems from that link Cohenite put up that others are ‘observing’ that CO2 is not a key driver?

  473. Neville says

    MFT thanks for that video link. Smith is very good and Flint has a series of these videos.

    I hope Cohenite has the time to watch this one and perhaps give us his opinion. Certainly a Royal Commission is the only way to properly untangle the mess of Australian trade union corruption.
    Even Labor men like McClelland and Cambridge agree.

  474. cohenite says

    Yes Neville, I’ve watched the Michael Smith piece; Faris QC is untertaking a review of the AWU trust/association set up by Gillard at Wilson’s behest. Faris was engaged by Nowicki who supposedly will pass on Faris’s report to the Victorian Law Institute. However, unlike NSW, in Victoria complaints about solicitors must come from clients.

    Conduct which may have established grounds for professional misconduct are no longer relevant; a criminal offence has to be alleged. The registration of the AWU association requires accurate information to be presented to the statutory body in the application; if Gillard has completed the application with false information that has the equivalence of lying under oath.

  475. gavin says

    Nev; ordinary I would have to say that I don’t know either situation well enough to answer your Q re Tokyo & London, but in taking it seriously I invite you to check this, +/- 2C for the whole of Japan on a day like today. I chose the 4th hour but you can use any. Have a go in east west slices for starters the north south for the max temp diff. Do it soon as the prevailing weather may change.

    http://www.jma.go.jp/en/kuko/

  476. Luke says

    Cohers, I don’t have sway with BoM or CSIRO for that matter. Ring them up – personal is always best – email so impersonal.

    Debs – its stats rubbish. Notice it’s published in a obscure journal. Tells you something doesn’t it. Not in GRL or J Climate where it wouldn’t get a soft review. You can’t solve this problem with polynomial regression – how stupid. When you’ve understood the paper and given you have 3 degrees give us an independent precis. By this evening should be easy for you. Stokers could tell you anything and you wouldn’t have a clue except it sounds impressive.

  477. gavin says

    PS; for anyone sitting on the fringe, the political/PM debate is a deliberate distraction from the climate science.

    Some commentators will never learn as we go on either. Spinning wheels stuck in a bog. Now I’m going to bang this home for the capable.

    Only the smartest temp measuring routines in extremes allow quality humidity control in man made closed environments. Relative humidity in atmospheric conditions is far more difficult than Met temp recording as it was. Air conditioning monitors had the right gear to do in house and UHI. Met observers did not and so we had to move on. The Japan Airport monitoring network as it is now allows us to think backwards in data reviews.

  478. Debbie says

    Luke?

    ‘You can’t solve this problem with polynomial regression – how stupid. ‘

    What problem are we trying to solve Luke?

  480. Debbie says

    So Luke?
    Without the expletives…..
    Did the sky fall in? Anyone get hurt? Children or animals injured?

  481. Neville says

    Gav in Lomborg’s “Cool It” ( pages 20 to 24) he gives examples of temp difference in Tokyo daytime august of 40+c and surrounding area of only 28.5c.
    Nights in Tokyo in August are 26.5c and surrounding areas 19c.

    Importantly he claims the studies show that this city area covers 8000km2 or equiv of 140 times the area of Manhattan.

    He claims that London now has 4-6c more urban heat and during the 2003 heatwave this reached 9c.

    He claims that this happens all around the world and gives the studies these measurements are based on.

    He mentioned all this in his talk to the ABARE conference in Canberra in 2011. When I have time I will link the video and where to find these claims.

  482. Minister for Truth says

    ..”if Gillard has completed the application with false information that has the equivalence of lying under oath”. Says Cohenite.

    If what Cohenite says is correct, and what Michael Smiths video is describing is also correct,

    namely what Gillard wrote in her own handwriting on the Application form to the officer for

    Registration of Incorporated Associations is also correct …then she has clearly lied under oath.

    So what now …does she, or does she not have case to answer. I would have thought the answer is
    Yes

    As Smith says she has misled the OIC of Incorporated Associations ….

  483. Debbie says

    Gavin,
    I don’t think anyone is saying that the equipment hasn’t improved.
    Of course it has improved and the Japan Airport equipment is a good example of that.
    I don’t believe however that it has the capabilities to ‘think backwards’.
    You still seem to be ignoring the influence of location and UHI and the capabilities of the equipment that were used in those locations and at that time.

    BTW Gavin, my ‘cheeks’ told me it was very cold at my place this morning.
    However, to record empirical data in my records I need thermometers to record the temp…because my ‘cheeks’ are not capable of giving me a number.
    Ours are pretty good thermometers as it’s important to us to keep good weather records.
    Our rain gauges, wind recording equipment and barometers are OK as well.
    The thermometers?
    They said freezing this morning….yet there was no frost.
    Yesterday they said not quite as freezing but we had a cracker frost.
    The one near the shed was different to the one near the house both mornings.
    We often swap them around to make sure that one isn’t just measuring differently to the other….they’re fine.
    What’s causing the variables?

  484. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Debbie

    I think some people can’t see the forest for the tree.
    My head is spinning with the stuff dished up here trying to explain away the inconvenient facts.
    Just as well I stopped reading some posts in full.

    The way I would have approached this is simple.
    Set up a measuring device in a certain position, doesn’t matter where!
    Observe the measurements for a meaningful period of time.
    Say ten years.
    (We have these records and longer than ten years!)

    Compare the recorded measurements day for day for each year and compare them.
    Do the same for each week then each month and for the year averaged or take the median, or whatever statistical method you wish to use.

    Then see if there is a trend or not.
    No need to allow for UHI effect or anything, same location same time.

    I do not buy the argument that methods changed and instruments changed so we have to adjust, we are not interested in specific degrees as such, we want to see a trend. Finer assessment can come after if really interested.

    If you really want to be finicky about it then, we know fairly accurately when measuring instruments and methods were changed, stop there with the old records and start anew with the analyses using the different data-sets produced by the later instruments, BUT do not ADJUST or extrapolate.

    Of course if you have something to prove then it’s advantageous to adjust the data to suit.

  485. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Sorry I forgot to add that anyone ignoring/denying the heat island effect is fooling himself.

    That is why I am so much against “smoothing” and adjusting past records.
    If the records were taken in an UHI position they would still provide a trend, BUT in only for that particular position.
    One simply should not be allowed to extrapolate from there, the temperature of a different location.
    If this make s sense?

  486. gavin says

    Nev; had a gander at Lombard links after wondering who did his measurements. You didn’t do the Japan thingy today where I can quickly demonstrate the whole region is about the same temperature regardless of sites. No point doing Lombard, is there?

    For the uninitiated, it was pretty hard to to find Lombard’s differentials in a little town like Melbourne on a hot summer’s day inside or out. Ambient is ambient down in the City, out in the oil refinery, under a hospital balcony, wherever. Typical heat rise in a boiler house is only a few degrees anytime unless it’s right up against the furnace or steam pipe. A few yards outside and that heat is gone and it won’t be picked up at the airport.

    Deb; the temp diff across your property is zilch. The only way to ground those readings is to hold the whole bunch of thermometers in ice water for a min or two and watch which one is closest to zero before your hand warms their glass and case.

  487. Debbie says

    But Gavin?
    They’re not hand held thermometers…they don’t have a glass case.
    They’re digital.

  488. Debbie says

    And BTW Gavin,
    How would you know that the difference across my property is zilch?
    Did you read them?
    It seems like you think I walk around with a bunch of medical type thermometers in my hot little hand?
    Has it occured to you that us red necked country yokel irrigation farmers might possibly know how to keep accurate weather records (including temps), find it important to use modern equipment and believe that keeping accurate records is useful for our type of business?

  492. Debbie says

    Apology accepted Gavin,
    However, let me assure you that although probably not perfect, the equipment is working OK.
    It gets checked regularly.
    The variations in readings from around my property/s is unlikely due to the equipment.
    Amazingly, us country yokel irrigation farmers, out of necessity, also know a fair bit about calibrating equipment.
    It helps prevent us from over using fertilisers and chemicals among other things.
    Amazingly, we also use satellite equipment.
    And metering equipment etc etc etc.
    However, thanks for your advice, I am always open to learning.

  494. John Sayers says

    Yes, Tony is surrounded by women so to call him out is ridiculous.

    Perhaps the next step is to line the leading women up and look at their record just like we do the boys.

  495. gavin says

    Deb; you may be amused but I have advised on bulk seed heads in transport and storage, doing moisture and humidity the old way, dry bulb v wet bulb hand held. Also core temperatures for mushroom compost in production and hams in the smoke house.

    Fork lifts broke or rolled up my probe wires almost every day in both plants so we reverted to using common 240v lead despite the kiln atmosphere curing it too after a while. Hard to say which was worst, compost juice or smoked ham juice but we had crossed the bridge in avoiding premature opening of a batch

  498. Neville says

    Gav here’s Lomborg at Abare outlook conference Canberra see 7 min 50sec into the video discussing the difference in temp for a number of cities and surrounding area.

  499. spangled drongo says

    Yes John and Debbie,

    Perhaps those women are just not very comfortable being scrutinising by a man and nothing works like the sexist card to take the pressure off.

  500. Ian Thomson says

    John and SD , need a like button.
    And I actually think Tony is a bit of a wanker in some ways
    Don’t trust any of them much.

    Gav etc, as a child we took turns, (4 brothers and Dad, ) at filling out official weather and temp and rain and cloud records for the day , out in the country . Looking at the sky and learning isn’t done by computers, it is done by people, has been for ever and ever.
    That is why some of us first thought the MODELS were sus and checked them out.

  501. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Listened to Jon Faine this morning and he compared JG’s setting up an association to receive moneys
    ( half a mil or more in this case) without recording it in a file to a solicitor writing a letter of demand re. a car accident.

    Not to mention that Mr Wilson actually represented her client the AWU, in the first place… hellloo?
    Why not a file and why no charge?

    Can’t understand why nobody finds this strange?

  503. cohenite says

    “Listened to Jon Faine this morning and he compared JG’s setting up an association to receive moneys
    ( half a mil or more in this case) without recording it in a file to a solicitor writing a letter of demand re. a car accident.”

    The ABC are beyond redemption.

  504. gavin says

    Ian; “some of us first thought the MODELS were sus and checked them out”

    Who, and how??

    I have great respect for the diligence of any first hand observers doing daily weather checks for the records but it’s not my way of analysis. In roaming industry it became necessary to find short cuts as it was more often about nailing causes of bad situations. Checking their instruments was the easy bit. Unlocking interlocks and bad practice was the hard part cause people tend to get embarrassed. Drifting away from routines takes courage as there is seldom a plan.

    Opened the blinds this morning and there is no cloud or wind. The foliage closest is absolutely still. I can see flocks of big white birds perched around a pylon in the far distance. There were some high in the eucalypt canopy too. While trying to decide what they are, they seem to get bigger. Tip, almost dead tree down by the creek is the roost for local Sulphur Crested Cockatoos.

    The first model to check is your brain cause we as individuals can determine to a certain extent, the inputs, connections and outcomes i.e perceptions as we go. Imagination is the next step cause that may determine the tools, hardware and software alike.

  506. Luke says

    Fascinating – what does the Gillard issue have to do with an enviro issues blog? Certainly no interest here previously on Iraq-wheat or children over-board? not relevant we were told

  507. debbie says

    Gavin,
    I am very close to withdrawing my apology.
    Once again you are trying to use that supremely ridiculous ‘cheeks’ argument which is extremely dismissive and actually downright rude.
    The only sensible thing you said was: who and how?
    Let me pose something for you:
    WHO….is looking at anything approaching sensible social policy?
    HOW….are they achieving it?
    Luke,
    In a sense I actually agree with you.
    I have very little interest in the Gillard issue or the stupid ‘sexist’ card that is being played at the moment.
    However….if people want to get in the gutter and make attempts to shoot the messenger rather than actually listening to the message….I guess they deserve everything they get.
    Both ‘sides’ are equally guilty of that behaviour and unfortunately the MSM loves it.
    But Luke?
    Enviro issues?
    Have you not understood that your so called ‘enviro issues’ have been shamelessly politicised?
    They have been played just as flippantly and shamelessly as this latest nonsense ‘sexist’ ploy.

  508. spangled drongo says

    Luke, like Faine, Cassidy, Fran Kelly and all the lefty proclaimers only want it to go away.

    If the press had done its job it would have been dealt with in the distant past.

    Now, surprise, surprise, it has festered into something much more meaningful.

    ♪I wonder who’s denying now?

    I wonder who’s teaching her how?

    I wonder who’s looking into her eyes

    Breathing sighs, telling lies…♪

  510. Luke says

    Well blog info says

    “Jennifer Marohasy, the weblog, is a gathering place for people with an interest in environmental issues, particularly climate change issues.”

    Jen has also talked about the need for evidence based science and environmental policy.

    For example – she previously didn’t engage on PETA issues as being “not on topic”. Also some agricultural issues. Well of course it’s her blog so ….

    Have we now drifted into a more liberal (hahaha) agenda? where the our fellow travellers politics and hand baggage of certain mind sets are along for the blog ride too?

    On the Gillard issue – if Pickering supposedly “has the goods” – well bring it ! Do we all need to speculate on what we don’t know? I’m simply suggesting rock over to Tim Blair or Andrew Bolt were it’s “on topic”.

    Would you like to discuss origami Debs?

  515. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Now, now John!
    You should know better by now that there papers and publications Luke approves of and there are those he does not.

    Same with scientists.
    Sometimes his opinion changes depending on the latest uttering of said scientist.

    Luke you are right about politics on this blog, but you have to admit it’s only a small number of posts compared to the main theme and it is a current issue worth mentioning.

    And quite frankly I would like to have someone as PM who has no problem answering a few questions re. her past actions and judgements.

  516. gavin says

    Nev; I struggled through Lomborg Utube 1 & 2 all whatif and crap then I found “The Skeptical Environmentalist”: A Conversation with John Tierney and Bjorn Lomborg and started to warm to the clown juggling his invisible balls of whatifs. Never built anything in his life most likely.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5YmgekQyNk

    Back to UHI; Japan all over on my link from yesterday has only 2C variation airport to airport almost anytime. But do a closer look Tokyo and its airport then workout the likely variation from a multitude of near by stations. Lets do UHI again.

    http://www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Tokyo-Haneda-Airport/metars/latest

    There is a great opportunity to see elevation and sat images here

    http://www.wunderground.com/weather-forecast/JP/Tokyo_Downtown.html

  517. cohenite says

    “Fascinating – what does the Gillard issue have to do with an enviro issues blog?”

    Gillard introduced the carbon tax, designed to solve the proven consequences of AGW; sometimes it is instructive to look at who is saying it rather than what is being said; although in Gillard’s case the 2 entwine.

    Archibald is doing some good work on solar/climate interaction.

    Is gav really denying UHI? Argue with NASA gav, they’re looking for signs of alien life; you fit the bill nicely:

    http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/heat-island-sprawl.html

  518. Luke says

    Somehow self publishing doesn’t quite convince John … couldn’t see any J Climate or GRL there.
    I have even personally invested in one of his “works”.

    and especially if you take the time to read in detail http://n3xus6.blogspot.com.au/2007/02/dd.html

    and more especially after numerous smack downs by Leif Svalgaard at Wattsup. I assume you know of Svalgaard?

    He certainly has diverse interests too – try googling him and chilli powder and prostate.

  520. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Luke
    “He certainly has diverse interests too”
    (bazzard, note the bolding!)

    Having interests outside of the prime is a now negative?
    What a bizarre notion.
    I really hope Luke, that you at least follow some sport or have a hobby?

  521. spangled drongo says

    “Fascinating – what does the Gillard issue have to do with an enviro issues blog?”

    When she and Wayne are wielding the machete on our country’s future from every angle, the sooner people wake up to her bona fides the better.

    If you’re happy to let someone who did what she appears to have done here, be in charge of your piece of paradise, you’re crazy.

    Anyone with half a brain would want to know a bit more detail.

  523. spangled drongo says

    “.Joke of the day – hilarious
    Seems the ALP has a sense of humour after all!

    Check it out yourself at ;

    http://www.pm.gov.au/contact-your-pm

    Some questions you might like to ask her;

    With previous work for Slater & Gordon with regards her ex boyfriend;

    Why no client identification?

    Why no deed of incorporation on file?

    Why no client risk & objective profile?

    Why no authorisation from the AWU Trustee?

    Why done in secret from partners?

    Why couldnt you rule out to your partners that you hadn’t personally profited from the situation?

    And lots more”

  524. toby says

    SD, its pretty hard to think of any current government policies that will genuinely benefit productivity. In fact as your article suggests they do the opposite.

    i dont think i can name any labor/ green policy that actually does benefit productivity, can you? and luke and baz i think suggesting the NBN would be embarrassing given its enormous cost and enormous lag time…maybe one day you will be able to point to it?

  525. spangled drongo says

    Yes Toby, and while the lefties run around in ever decreasing circles, here is a 73 year old scene that is also the present and the future:

    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/1939-shock-news-antarctic-meltdown-deserts-expanding-rivers-drying-up/

    This is why I have similar evidence of no SLR and also why, by the end of the century there will be no appreciable difference.

    If they wish to castrate themselves based on current evidence they can include me OUT.

  526. Debbie says

    Need the like button again for Cohenite.
    There’s the simple answer Luke.
    They’re entwined.

  527. gavin says

    Guys; I reckon cohenite has finally done us a favor.

    My point re UHI was and is, even on this thread; hot surfaces in the urban environment don’t impact on Met sites because the atmosphere is larger than that (except at night it seems). In any case, we can only attribute a very small part of one degree to a few city based records under the old system of max/min on a daily basis.

    Note now, my concession to the nightly situation because I was totally unaware, air at night behaves differently to daytime in a big city. Sadly, I worked daytime in most jobs and missed those events.

    So, let’s hear from you, each one too after a gander at this –

    http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/505102main_Figure4.JPG

    Fickle Deb; fire away, I’m scientifically armored.

  528. gavin says

    cohenite; you did not read thoroughly the article in your NASA link, did you?

    The whole thing is based on urban surfaces via satellite. Even they don’t can’t give you publicly at least, appropriate UHI adjustments for the old temp data. Now go look at my case for air over Japan. At any given time we find nothing but several degrees C differential for the majority of island sites where ever they are.

    Come to think about it Nev, I guess we can treat the British Isles similarly.

    Now, all go off and do some real homework

  529. spangled drongo says

    “hot surfaces in the urban environment don’t impact on Met sites because the atmosphere is larger than that”

    Gawd gav, how long does it take for the penny to drop?

    That is exactly the point!

    That just happens to be where the thermometers are placed!

    In almost all situations!

    Of course it is not getting noticably hotter.

    IT IS JUST BEING RECORDED AS HOTTER!!

  530. cohenite says

    gav says:

    “The whole thing is based on urban surfaces via satellite. Even they don’t can’t give you publicly at least, appropriate UHI adjustments for the old temp data.”

    Gav, as SD notes, that is where the UHI affect happens; the thermometers in the city are going up at a greater rate due to localised, non-natural heating; ie UHI. The satellites confirm this, but the UHI effect has not been considered by the ground based temperature indices; for instance BEST disregards it simply because its methodology is wrong.

    The old grey mare ain’t what she used to be.

  531. gavin says

    OK Guys; how much is that air temp elevated by UHI at any site you chose, worst case even?

    Use Fig 4.

    I’m waiting by impatiently!

  532. Debbie says

    Gavin,
    Get real.
    If humans are not having a noticeable local effect where they are heavily concentrated, then why would they have any effect globally?
    Isn’t AGW human caused global warming?
    Where do most of the humans hang out Gavin? Where is most of the human activity Gavin? Where is most of the human GHG Gavin?

  534. gavin says

    Cohenite: Please answer my question properly if you can instead of offering irrelevant links.

  536. Debbie says

    Gavin,
    ROFL! 🙂 🙂 🙂
    That’s a bit rich.
    How about you answer questions?
    How about you cease offering irrelevant links?

  537. spangled drongo says

    gav, I’ve got a reliable thermometer, compass, altimeter etc in my info binnacle in my 4wd and as I drive from my place [in the bush] into the nearest village, just the effect of black asphalt and buildings raises temps 2c on most days but watch it as you hit the freeway and the traffic snarls of the city and 6c is often the case. When this infrastructure retains and slowly radiates this heat and blocks cooling breezes through the night the net effect is considerable.

    It’s not just my 4wd that is causing this. The temp goes into reverse when I turn around and head home.

  539. gavin says

    That BoM link was very good for all of us cohenite. Let me plunge in again with the worst case Melbourne, however I will claim protection from the after night scenario on the basis of ignorance for now. Recall though, I only air temp not surface UHI since air is what we measured for the met.

    First Q, was Melbourne’s met station badly compromised by the CBD? + 4 C you can say.

    What about the Airport? Interestingly once out of the CBD, temps are quite uniform for industrial and residential, so let’s give all those areas + 2C and remove that inflated CBD from the record. No?

    Given that equation, can we go out of the city proper and fix a few more? btw air temp is uniform out here too, give or take a bit of error +/- half a degree.

    Couldn’t our Mr Jones do that also and substantially improve the older data?

    SD; I was thinking before, perhaps we could have a shoot out in RL where I bring my old sling (pair) to a big Metro here (high noon, your side’s choice) and do a demo via a wander down town and further on as required to prove my point there is less than say 2C between places on an ordinary day

  540. cohenite says

    “however I will claim protection from the after night scenario on the basis of ignorance”

    Gav’s playing the Gillard young and naive card.

  541. Debbie says

    Gavin,
    So you obviously think there is no such thing as UHI?
    You obviously don’t think a heavy concentration of humanity/human activity has any measureable impact on the local environment and local air quality?
    And you think a tweak of +/- 2 deg will fix it anyway?
    Fix what Gavin?

  542. Neville says

    Lomborg’s 2010 movie “Cool It” is now on youtube. It is about 1 hr 30 mins.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZPbYF8v35g

    He travels all over the world and many of the top scientists are featured in the movie. If this doesn’t wake people up then nothing will.

    There is zero we can do at present except spend more on R&D and adaptation and new inventions or more geo engineering.
    Introducing co2 taxes are pure idiocy and can never , ever work and it is amazing how dumb we’ve become trying to do the impossible.

    UHI is featured at about 1hr 8 mins and the scientist with him claims they could cool Los Angeles by 5c for about 1 billion $ and it would be a more livable city.

  543. spangled drongo says

    Did you watch Leigh Sales savage Tony Abbott on “7.30” last night? I’ve never seen such an ill-mannered ABC interview. The hatred was palpable.

    Mainly over BHP’s withdrawal from Olympic Dam which Abbott rightly claimed was influenced by the govts new carbon and mining taxes. How obtuse do you have to be to not understand that the C/B of mining would NOT be affected?

    And to introduce them just as the boom is going off the boil. What a natural coup de grace.

    Likewise over Abbott calling boat arrivals illegals.

    When Abbott is so right and Labor and its cheer squad so wrong, I suppose the only thing you have left is to shoot the messenger.

    The ABC needs a reality check.

  544. Neville says

    I’m busy at the moment but I must link to that graph of the planet’s emissions again until 2035.

    http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/emissions.cfm

    In 1990 the world emitted 21.6 bn tonnes of human co2 OECD 11.6 and non OECD 10 , by 2000 the OECD was 13.1 pa and non OECD was 10.6 pa, by 2010 OECD 13 bn tonnes pa and non OECD 18.8 bn tonnes pa .

    Total in 2010 31.8pa and all but 1.4 bn tonnes p.a of that increase since 1990 was emitted by the non OECD.

  546. gavin says

    In a nutshell Deb; I treat UHI issues the same way your mob (other commentators here) treat AGW. Even Nev’s Lomborg acknowledges warming.

    In detail my objection to your mob’s UHI campaign against using Met data as our major indicator of AGW before and after intelligent adjustments is the fact that surface hot spots don’t necessarily impact on weather stations as shown by fig 4, note the dotted brown line – day time air temp that features in old Met records.

    http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/505102main_Figure4.JPG

    I had a feeling our David Jones had a good handle on local Met adjustment but until I partially read that Doc in cohenite’s link yesterday, I did not know how our methods had evolved. My +/-2C was simply an estimate of overall met station error, not UHI in particular. UHI it seems falls in 0>+2C error range for a discount at Post Offices as they were, but it depends a lot on time of day.

    SD; in fairness, your 4WD run does not roll over Met Station sites and we don’t really expect old technical folk to do air temp studies on the road way, do we?

  547. Debbie says

    Luke,
    apart from the fact that I could argue that this is unpublished in any ‘serious’ place, what does it prove or disprove about anything I have posted?
    I have not claimed anywhere that the climate isn’t changing. That is actually a given.
    Are you ageeing with Gavin that UHI is immaterial?

  548. Luke says

    What it proves Debs is that you’re ultra selective and chose not to explore past what you want to know. So why is the climate changing, how fast and what are the implications?

  549. Debbie says

    Gavin,
    If you could pay attention, my objection is that ALL the AGW material is geared towards one AND ONLY ONE technique/solution. Your accusations about mobs is patently ridiculous.
    If you could explain a technique/solution that would actually achieve a positive/useful outcome then I might take what you have to say a little more seriously.
    I would suggest that if humans are really causing catastrophic or alarming changes to the weather/climate, then perhaps we should look at the places where humans hang out in major concentrations?
    I would also suggest that you study the legislation and the stated goals and objectives and consider if they have achieved anything useful or progressive or for that matter fiscally/environmentally responsible.
    Maybe you might also check real time data re CO2 and warming and consider whether CO2 is really the key driver that the hypothesis and the projections have claimed?
    Because that is what the legislation and the political PR is using as its justification.
    The ‘science is settled’ according to the PR.
    Lomberg actually looks at ways we could achieve some useful and positive results Gavin.
    What he suggests actually has some logic attached to it.
    He is one of the few high profile commentators who looks at sensible, achievable techniques to mitigate any human influences.
    Maybe you need to watch again and read up on his work with your parochial, political blinkers off?
    He is not particularly focused on ‘politics’ per se.
    He is rather scathing of the current political assumptions and political behaviour.

  551. cohenite says

    luke scuttles to his big mate tammy, who says:

    “Warming hasn’t been the same everywhere. Land areas have warmed faster than the oceans, the northern hemisphere has warmed faster than the southern, and the Arctic has warmed faster still — just as predicted by climate scientists decades ago.”

    Predictions, yeah right.

    The Arctic:

    http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/Arctic_1.jpg

    From 2005:

    http://jennifermarohasy.com//wp-content/uploads/2009/04/rss-arctic-since-2005.png

    And tammy uses the GISS temperaqture; about GISS and temperature:

    http://www.ozclimatesense.com/2012/08/color-it-red.html

    This effort by luke is particularly shoddy; he either has a virus or has realised that AGW is a big fat lie!

  553. gavin says

    Deb, Lomborg is only a maverick commentator who helps others avoid the main game. When somebody says they can fix Las Vegas for a cool 1 billion, I surf and find all the links are about air conditioning and nobody mentions moving underground. Btw CO2 is what we make when we run our air conditioners.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/11/heat-wave-western-us_n_1768755.html

    Politics & focus; Michelle Grattan claimed today our Carbon Tax had a quiet start despite Abbott’s best efforts. Are we disapointed?

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/politics-with-michelle-grattan/4216994

    SD; I put your Abbott savage in the same boat as the current online campaign to hock rope our PM

  554. debbie says

    Gavin,
    You are obviously far more interested in the ‘politics’ than you are about anything that might approach a useful/achievable outcome.
    How about you attempt to answer questions and contribute to discussions about actual sensible social policy and evidence rather than your continual political/parochial/ personal comments & personal attacks?
    What on earth do you think the ‘main game’ is Gavin?
    Something happening in Canberra?

  555. debbie says

    BTW Gavin CO2 is something that we make when we breathe too!
    You seem to forget that all of us and most of our living environment are carbon based lifeforms.
    Conversion of carbon is a common way to produce energy….even in nature….even in the atmosphere.

  557. spangled drongo says

    “SD; I put your Abbott savage in the same boat as the current online campaign to hock rope our PM”

    So you’re still into shooting messengers rather than dealing with messages?

    Deal with reality, gav. It’s never too late.

  558. cohenite says

    “I put your Abbott savage in the same boat as the current online campaign to hock rope our PM”

    Hock rope!?

    Is gav implying our PM is a nag?

  559. debbie says

    But Gavin,
    While that 8 day disconnect can be explained in a variety of different and valid ways….and AGW is only ONE of them….
    Is he causing it?

  560. Luke says

    Cohenite trots out all the usual denialist stuff. zzzzzz

    SD – a single core somewhere eh? wow

  561. bazza says

    well, the PM gets an apology again from The Australian, she put Pickering in his place and by implication cohenite down there bottom feeding with him.
    Meanwhile on with the show and concern about where Deb sticks her thermometer, and all the usual questions like why dont denialists ever argue amongst themselves as true sceptics do.?

  563. cohenite says

    bazza gloats!

    “well, the PM gets an apology again from The Australian, she put Pickering in his place and by implication cohenite down there bottom feeding with him.”

    Let’s go through this: first The Australian’s apology:

    “An article in today’s The Australian reported that Prime Minister Julia Gillard had set up a trust fund for her then boyfriend 17 years ago,” the paper’s apology says.

    “This is wrong.

    “The Australian apologises for the error.”

    What The Australian got wrong was what Gillard set up; it was not a Trust but an Association; at law a crucial difference but in the context of the accusations about Gillard of no consequence.

    The key point remains; Gillard set up an Association with a declared purpose which was allegedly fundamentally different from its actual purpose; the declared purpose of the Association was:

    “development of changes to work to achieve safe workplaces”

    Gillard admitted the actual purpose of the Association was:

    “to hold a union re-election “slush fund”.

    Are these 2 things, the actual and declared purpose of the Association compatible or deceptive, bearing in mind that every solicitor is an officer of the court and whose legal work has the status of an oath. What got Marcus Einfeld in trouble was lying under oath; has Gillard done the same? Is that a question which has been answered by her?

    Tell me bazza, has she answered that question?

    And while you are at it, also tell me why Shorten and the other senior officials of the AWU are not interested in recovering the money which Wilson funnelled through his Association?

  564. Neville says

    Luke the current slight warming comes at the end of the LIA, so what. Do you want it to get even colder perhaps, or stay the same forever?

    Our current warming is not unprecedented or unusual at all and comes at the end of one of the coldest periods of the holocene.

    Now if we had real extreme warming like the exit from the younger dryas you might be forgiven for being alarmed, although that wasn’t caused by AGW.
    I.e. an increase of 10c in just ten years, not just 0.7c in 100+ years like this modern slight increase.

    BTW Gav Lomborg is stating the facts and shows actual data and numbers for all his assertions and gives the only credible method for tackling the problem as he sees it.

    I’ve given you the numbers and source for Aco2 emissions for the lat 21 years and if you can’t see that Gillard’s idiot co2 tax is a total fraud and con then you’re wasting our time.

  566. gavin says

    After Nev; “source for Aco2 emissions” I checked into this

    emissionshttp://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/climate_stats/gg_emissions/uk_emissions/uk_emissions.aspx

  568. Debbie says

    But but but Bazza?
    that would be conceding that
    a) Debbie knows what a thermometer is and
    b) Debbie knows how to read a thermometer and
    c) Debbie knows where to stick a thermometer.
    That can’t be right can it?
    Are you going to answer anyone’s questions anytime soon?
    Cohenite has a good one pending at the moment.
    I think I have just a few pending.
    Pretty sure that Toby and SD and JW have got a few pending.
    Broad, unsubstantiated political statements shouldn’t be acceptable on a blog like this according to Luke.

  569. Debbie says

    But but but Bazza?
    that would be conceding that
    a) Debbie knows what a thermometer is and
    b) Debbie knows how to read a thermometer and
    c) Debbie knows where to stick a thermometer.
    That can’t be right can it?
    Are you going to answer anyone’s questions anytime soon?
    Cohenite has a good one pending at the moment.
    I think I have just a few pending.
    Pretty sure that Toby and SD and JW have got a few pending.
    Broad, unsubstantiated political statements shouldn’t be acceptable on a blog like this according to Luke.

  571. Mark Aurel says

    Don’t worry Debbie it reads better the second time around.

    Looks like nothing much changed on the forum then, while I was away in Europe and Russia on business. Actually come to think of it most of Russia is part of Europe.

  575. Luke says

    Just think Bazza – all the trash feeders like Cohers getting on the Pickering bandwagon – Nova ran it too – how predictable. But this is the sort of conspircacy theorist creeps you find in sceptic parties and hanging around Monckton concerts. Shame !

  576. cohenite says

    “Trash feeders”! With Gillard shouldn’t it be bottom feeders?

    Seriously luke, I know your science is a bit up and down but supporting Julia “all youse people who hate me are mysogynists’ Gillard, well really. All I’m trying to do is point out that misrepresenting the purpose of a “slush fund”, sorry Association, is very naughty. Or are you DENYING that? Denying she did that and forgiving her are 2 different things; which are you doing?

  577. toby says

    I thought” the rule” was that the first person to pull the msyoginst or nazi argument had lost.

    Come on, as if its because we hate females??!!

    She performed well yday but do you seriously think it was ok for her to open an accountwith no file and for it to be used to as she put it yday ” help elect union reps that said they would support workplace safety”……is that what union funds are for? really? you would be ok with that?

    I would agree there have been some slanderous statements made…….i wonder why there will be no court case?

  578. Debbie says

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/electricity-and-gas-retailers-to-come-under-national-savings-scheme/story-fn59niix-1226457016425

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/time-to-harness-power-of-change/story-e6frfhqf-1226456104304

    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/politics/as-a-carbon-heavyweight-australia-needs-to-lift-its-game-20120821-24kjr.html

    Here’s a little run of MSM stuff under the heading of “SCIENCE” this morning.
    Anyone notice what is strange about putting these under the heading of “SCIENCE”.??????

    Luke is excited because he can comment on a Pickering/Gillard conspiracy and then take a swing at some type of other ‘political conspiracy’ to do with sceptic parties and Monckton concerts etc…
    Luke….
    People like me (if I’m a sceptic) couldn’t care less about Gillard, Abbot, Pickering, Monckton Concerts or anything similar….that is purely personal comments….character comments…..in the big picture I couldn’t give a flying rip.
    People like me care about POLICY!
    Why are you making such comments when only 2 days ago you were complaining about this stuff?
    Wouldn’t be because you think it has something to do with ‘sides’ would it?
    Wouldn’t be because you enjoy character assassination would it?
    As far as I’m concerned, if people want to get into the gutter and play bully tactics and attack people personally then they better learn how to take it when it comes back at them.
    Gillard has done an amazing amount of personal commenting and backstabbing…..not least being to memebers of her own party….why should she be surprised that some is coming back her way?
    I also find it amusing that a couple of days ago….according to you….cohers isn’t a bad bloke….now he’s suddenly a trash feeder….according to you?

  579. spangled drongo says

    So luke, you’re quite happy that all is “settled”?

    Like the science?

    As the sun sets the lefties just turn up the volume.

    gav, so pleased you could find an “unbiased” version.

    Weren’t they supposed to disappear by 2035?

    Or was that a biased version?

    And are you relaxing yet?

  580. John Sayers says

    That Anna Burke, deputy speaker is a real worry. She allows Gillard to call Abbott “Jack the Ripper” and all sorts of names yet when he called Julia a liar for totally misrepresenting what he had said he got turfed out of the Parliament.

    I actually preferred Slipper – he at least tried to be fair and balanced.

    Julia’s not off the hook yet.

  581. cohenite says

    As for Pickering; answer these luke; questions to Gillard:

    1. You said yesterday that you paid for your renovations. Why then did you previously say you couldn’t be certain that you did?

    2. You said you believed it was “slush fund”. As an industrial Lawyer did you seriously not know a “slush fund” could in no way be an Association?

    3. If you believed it was a “slush fund” why did you print on the Application Form that its intended role was to facilitate “worker safety and training”?

    4. Is it true that the four people present in the room when you drew up this document were yourself, Ralph Blewitt, Bruce Wilson and Senior Equity Partner, Bernard Murphy?

    5. An Association requires, by law, to have at least five members. Who did you nominate?

    6. When you drew up a power of attorney for your friend Bruce Wilson to act for Ralph Blewitt, why did you not inform Mr Blewitt of the mortgage, now in his name, prior to going to buy the house with Mr Wilson?

    7. When conducting the firm’s conveyancing (again pro bono) for the purchase and sale of the Kerr Street house, did you take note of where the money was coming from and going to?

    8. Why were the Association, the bank account, the purchase and sale of the house and the mortgage kept secret from the AWU.

    9. How could the purchase of the house be consistent with either a “slush fund” or “worker safety and training”?

    10. Why did you attempt to deliberately mislead the WA Commissioner for Corporate Affairs when setting up this Association?

    11. Why did you not inform your firm’s boss or your firm’s client, the AWU, of any of your actions?

    12. Do you agree it is your handwriting on the fraudulent form?

    13. When the AWU discovered the fraud, why did that union’s boss, Ian Cambridge, immediately sack Slater & Gordon and call for a Royal Commission?

    14. Why were you asked, by your employer, for a taped interview?

    15. After you were dismissed why did you not renew your Practising Certificate?

    16. Why is the six months subsequent to your dismissal missing from your CV?

    17. Why did your boss, Styant-Browne say, and I quote: “…the company took a very serious view of these and other matters and accepted her resignation”?

    18. What did Mr Styant-Browne mean by, “…a serious view of these and other matters?

    19. Is Mr Styant-Browne, or Mr Gordon correct?

    20 Why was Senior Equity Partner Bernard Murphy asked to make a settlement and leave at the same time as yourself?

    21 When your ex-Attorney General Rob McClelland stated in Parliament, “…a third party may have benefitted from…”, was this “third party” he referred to, you?

    22 What did you mean by, “I was treated shabbily”, when you were asked to leave the firm?

    23 You refuse to make a statement in the House. Is it true you realise it would be illegal to lie when so doing?

    24 And finally Ms Gillard, how can you profess to be a champion of the working class when you have clearly been complicit, with your boyfriend, in stealing their money?

  582. Minister for Truth says

    Wow..they are 24 very good questions which reveal what a theatre Gillards performance yesterday really was.

    ..and top of this Mann has taken the bait, and will be suing Steyn/NRO over an allegedly defamatory article.

    The discovery processes for the Mann/Steyn case, if it gets that far, will be most revealing.

    Interesting times ahead

  587. bazza says

    Poor cohenite, losing his audience as well. He desperately orders attention: “bazza, are you there? luke, gav?”.I will jump to it. He will be able to open a knackery soon with all the dead horses he flogs. That is if he gets over his OCD on legal semantics. It must be anathema for him – a legal firm daring to help the workers. Have we forgotten English law was designed to protect the upper classes from the excesses of the workers? cohenite will never be truly happy till the kids are back down the mines. Then again he is starting to make even Pickering look dignified.

  588. cohenite says

    bazza channels Dickens and the poor! Ha! I used to work for a Union compensation legal firm and was once a member of the ALP! Mate, whatever the current ALP is or is doing it isn’t for the workers!

  589. toby says

    So apparently luke and baz think gillard has done ntg wrong at all and union members funds should be used for the purposes of funding the “right” union candidates……not for promoting direct training etc to reduce workplace accidents??? is young and naive really an excuse?

    i thought chris uhlmann did a fine job on 7.30 last night.

    another interesting insight into the minds of intelligent people who seem to be able to reach entirely different conclusions from the same facts.

  590. toby says

    A letter in todays australian makes a telling point ( i think!) “not opening a file on behalf of the AWU meant that the union would not have been billed for the work and hence would not have become aware that the work had been done, nor would it have become aware of the nature of the work”…….how terribly convenient…….

    and “not opening a file meant that her partners at Slater & Gordon would not have been aware of this work and its nature.”….at the very least meaning no payment for work done. Is that Ethical?…if its normal process…..is that reasonable?

  591. Robert says

    Look, it may be wise to take a hint from Michael Smith about Pickering, who is best described as a right-wing Gillard, a gutter-smart survivor.

    Businesses have always looked for ways to make their bribes tax-free. If neither the donating businesses, the law firm or the union bodies wanted to make a fuss seventeen years ago it’s because Gillard and Wilson had gone too far in a game that was pretty familiar to all players. Who knows? Maybe Wilson was tight with his kickbacks, which should have been generous if the “slush” was tax-free to him. Who knows who was colluding with whom? Who disappointed whom? It’s a slippery gutter, but criminality may be very hard to establish.

    There is nothing new about unions colluding with big business, and some creativity and initiative with slush funds is what makes it all fun and profitable. (Obviously, the two fine nurses I know who can’t afford to pursue their chosen profession would not be amused by how Craig Thomson represented their interests, but country girls are born realistic about unions.)

    The law firm eased Gillard off the scene rather than opting to attract scandal. Who wouldn’t? I’m not justifying what these people did, but this whole thing plays to Gillard’s real strengths. She grows an extra brain when she is conniving and infighting. She’s PM of Oz for a reason, even if it’s not a good reason.

    Really, Abbott was wise not to buy into it. Some lawyer maybe should have been disbarred seventeen years ago? Leave it to McClelland and Michael Smith, who appear honest and have paid a price. If they come up with something new and compelling, then fine. But don’t make it a conservative cause.

  592. kuhnkat says

    Cohenite,

    how soon they bury their offal!!

    The IPCC and modeling community predicted that BOTH poles would warm at accelerated rates. Why Steig did that abysmal Antarctica warming paper!! Like any gypsy or Tarot reader they talk up their apparent successes while burying ther failures!!

    Still waiting for the FINGERPRINT of WARMING!!! That’s right. Remember how they had the fingerprint of Gorebull Warming and it never showed up?? When we threw it in their face they claimed that fingerprint was not for Gorebull Warming but for ANY warming?!?!?!

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    So, they either proved there was NO significant warming or that their models were useless or BOTH!!

    Then there are all the predictions of accelerating this and that that never seem to accelerate other than their claims accelerating!! They are so overdone!!!

    Oh, and Luke hasn’t been there for years!! Just a sock puppet descending into dementia. 8>)

  593. debbie says

    All I can say about your last comment Bazza is this:
    You have just taken the award for the LEAST dignified commenter here.
    Just a whole heap of political, rhetorical nonsense, along with an extremely obvious attempt at character assassination.
    Very undignified of you.

  596. Minister for Truth says

    http://www.theage.com.au/business/taxes-a-drag-on-coal-kloppers-warns-investors-20120823-24oyp.html#ixzz24PSrzzIW

    So Abbott was basically correct in saying that, of course BHP isnt going to bag the Gillard Govt on bad news day of announcing the deferral of Olympic Dam

    Just wait until Kloppers is speaking out of the country then see what he says

    I thought the Leigh Sales i/v with Abbott was the worst performance of an ABC journalist ever, and beat anything Red Kerry did.

    Abbott may not have covered himself in glory, but at least he kept his cool and was polite.

  599. toby says

    cohenite, maybe, just maybe he has thought about just what an atrocious call it is to label people who think she has questions ( let alone had questions) to answer, misogynists.
    I didnt think she could stoop any lower in politics but she has taken it even lower.

    and also maybe embarrassed about some of his low life, bigoted comments?

    possibly he has even thought about how union funds should be used…and shouldnt? But that is probably too much to hope?….please prove me wrong Baz.

  600. toby says

    Hope he sues SD! That would I suspect be funny to watch, he does have an exceptional use of language and humour to couple with his intelligence.

  604. bazza says

    You gotta laugh – what a story it would be Cohenite getting the boot from the ALP: spose it gives him a motive.

  606. Debbie says

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19348427

    So….let me see…. the warming is not unusual but it could still conceivably perhaps maybe have a human fingerprint at the moment? Because….it seems it could be perhaps be a bit faster than before?
    Well!….that’s settled then! (NOT!)

    Bazza…..I don’t ever think it’s funny or laughable when someone gets ‘the boot’.
    Do you also think it’s funny that all those PS people are losing their jobs in QLD at the moment?

    While the new LNP party in QLD is doing what they have been given a mandate for, as the balance was getting right out of whack, it is still distresing for people to lose their jobs at any time.
    They are usually just regular, nice people who were doing their best to fill their job descriptions.

    I would also interpret from Cohenite’s previous comment that he didn’t actually get ‘the boot’ as you put it.
    Whichever of us happens to be correct…..your attitude is still thoroughly appalling.

    Gavin….please define your comment ‘marginal writers’?
    Marginal compared to what/whom exactly?

  607. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Marginal compared to what/whom exactly?

    Anyone they disagree with!
    Could be a treasured scientist one day, “one of us”, say something contrary to the mantra and be ostracised the next day!
    That’s who!

  608. John Sayers says

    Eleanor Hall from the ABC Midday Report was on talkabout on radio 702 this morning and they were discussing Julia and the AWU and she mentioned the internet blogger (Pickering) causing the trouble BUT she couldn’t remember who it was!!

    These ABC reporters are in Pixieland.

  609. toby says

    i note baz is still avoiding questions and slagging off cohenite with his vitriolic humor.

    i think you should at the very least tell us if you approve of gillard opening an account that was used for an alternative purpose and used union member funds to support union cronyism.
    was that an appropriate use of funds?

    Are we misgoynists for believing she had questions to answer? i didnt think she could stoop any lower but she has, talk about gutter politics.

    if you actually approve of her actions then that will be a sad indictment of your sense of right and wrong.

  610. bazza says

    The comment on the link to the BBC article (10:59 am) may have misled some who like a little context. The context was the Antarctic Peninsula over the last 15,000 years . The warming of Antarctica is occasionally contested in these crass circles as there is some variability to be exploited and the ozone story to be ignored. What the article said included:
    “Changes in the Earth’s orbit and tilt produce natural fluctuations in climate.
    Locked away in the ice core is a historical record of Antarctic temperatures
    Average temperatures change slowly – at a rate of roughly 0.1-0.2C per century.
    But the research showed that the recent rate of change in the peninsula has been considerably faster. “
    Funny how context can change impressions.

  611. Luke says

    Toby like Cohenite – you’re contributing more with every word to the misgoynist sludge. Fancy you creeps backing Pickering – what a joke ! BUT ARE WE SURPRISED ! – it’s your typical wacko tea party climate sceptic archetype.

    Do you reckon you’ll get you semi-automatics back with Abbott – in any case you’ll just have to dig them up from the back block where you left them – dust them off and you’ll be ready to go again eh?

    Try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzae_SqbmDE Yee ha !

  612. John Sayers says

    Luke – perhaps you should read the editorial in The Australian this weekend. Here it is:

    Gillard opens a file on spin

    GULLIBILITY and incuriosity are not ideal traits if your job is to hold politicians to account on behalf of the public.

    The journalists of the Canberra Press Gallery have a special privilege and responsibility in our democratic processes and this week many of them showed how they sometimes failed. After stonewalling detailed and serious questions from The Australian, Julia Gillard decided finally to confront the issues surrounding the end of her legal career at Slater & Gordon in 1995. Her tactics were as clever as they were transparent. The Prime Minister had spotted a clear but relatively minor error in a page six corollary story to our investigations into the affair. Our reporter referred to a “trust” fund when he should have written “slush” fund — you be the judge. Having demanded and received an apology, Ms Gillard decided to go on the attack, accuse this newspaper of recycling “false and defamatory” information, conflate our coverage with a vicious online blogger’s efforts and try to put the issue to bed.

    While she performed strongly in taking questions for about an hour, she still had not responded to careful and fair questions submitted in writing by our investigative reporter, Hedley Thomas. Ms Gillard threw herself at the mercy of journalists whose insights were limited to what they had read in the paper. Some of the key questions were asked, some not. Indisputably, she confirmed the key elements of Thomas’s revelations: at the behest of her lover, Bruce Wilson, she had established a union slush fund; it had not been officially described as such; she had not opened a file at the firm on the matter or notified other lawyers; her firm was concerned about this and conducted a formal interview over the affair; she resigned soon afterwards. This is all particularly controversial because (without Ms Gillard’s knowledge) the fund was then used by Mr Wilson and Ralph Blewitt to syphon union funds. When Ms Gillard became aware of the alleged corruption, she ended her relationship with Mr Wilson. We do not know what other action she took, if any, to alert authorities.

    The Prime Minister has not attacked The Sydney Morning Herald for reporting on Thursday that she might have broken the law — something this newspaper has never alleged. Yet, astoundingly, their political editor Peter Hartcher accuses The Australian of being “dedicated to the destruction” of the government. The Age also has been spared Ms Gillard’s wrath, despite following our reports with accounts of its own. But then, commentary by its political editor, Michelle Grattan, has seemingly sought to build a bridge with the Prime Minister ever since suggesting in April that she should resign. Many journalist have accepted the invitation to move on. At the ABC, political host Barrie Cassidy has demanded journalists place Tony Abbott under more scrutiny. Yet he argues Ms Gillard should face less. Perhaps instead of writing about journalism, he ought to practise some.

  613. dave shorter says

    Misogynists (or is that misgoynists ?) seem to be leading the two party prefered 56 to 44 Luke.
    Time to get with the strength son!

  614. Debbie says

    Crass circles?
    Some variability to be exploited?
    CONTEXT? ? ?
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
    ROFL!

  615. Neville says

    Bazza what about temp change of 10c in ten years as found in the NH and Venezuela after the Younger Dryas 11,500 years ago?

    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data4.html

    Is that fast enough for you? Not too bad for NATURAL CC? Luke you haven’t got a clue. But Bolt and others will still ask the hard questions. He has an interesting question for Gillard about a cheque sent to S&G.

    Amazing that the present PM of OZ admits that the fund she set up was really to be used as a slush fund. Really makes everybody feel proud and confident. NOT.
    She admitted this in 1995 and yet seemed to be coy about this fact until the transcript was released in the last few days.

  616. Johnathan Wilkes says

    I was trying to find out what their reasoning behind the use of deuterium</font? was but no luck.

    Deuterium is supposed to be pre-galactic isotope available in a constant quantity through the ages, and today only produced in laboratories mostly.

    So I can’t see the relevance of using it in this manner, if I’m wrong, very likely, any explanation is welcome.

  617. Johnathan Wilkes says

    I was trying to find out what their reasoning behind the use of deuterium was but no luck.

    Deuterium is supposed to be pre-galactic isotope available in a constant quantity through the ages, and today only produced in laboratories mostly.

    So I can’t see the relevance of using it in this manner, if I’m wrong, very likely, any explanation is welcome.

  618. toby says

    just like the problems with the CAGW meme, Luke fails to comprehend what is so obvious to most with a decent moral compass.

    cronyism is not ok luke….using union member funds to fund mates for elections is not appropriate. YOU DONT GET IT DO YOU?! I AM AMAZED, ACTUALLY DISGUSTED THAT YOU THINK WHAT SHE DID IS OK…My respect for you has gone

    i have never said all of what pickering said was ok, i have said it is out there and he should be done for slander…I wonder why he wont be?

    any one with decent ethics and morals however should be able to see that gillard acted appallingly and either was incompetent/ negligent or fraudulent. …naive doesnt cut it.
    She clearly new that the account she opened was not for its stipulated purpose….and you think that is ok? sad, very sad.

  619. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Need editing option please! (or at least the ability to delete duplicate posts)
    Thank you.

  621. cohenite says

    I didn’t get the boot from the ALP; I let my membership lapse.

    I don’t know where this misogyny claim is coming from; back when Pickering did as much as anyone to get rid of Gough I hated his guts; I’m still objective about him but I can’t see where his expose of Gillard has anything to do with her gender as opposed to everything to do with her credibility, or anything to do with his views about women.

  622. Debbie says

    Did you also notice the second last paragraph Bazza?
    Here:
    In his Nature paper, Dr Mulvaney did not conclude that the recent changes observed in the peninsula were down to human activity.
    If I knew how to bold it I would bold DR MULVANEY DID NOT CONCLUDE!
    He then makes this statement:
    “If I am pressed to say whether I think it’s human-induced, then I would say what we are seeing is human-induced.”
    I WOULD SAY????????
    The problem is that he has NOT CONCLUDED that in his paper.
    He may be right and he may be wrong about his ‘think’ but his conclusions were basically inconclusive…..that is the context is it not?
    As Neville’s link shows and the heading of this article also says:
    ‘Arctic warmth unusual but not unique.’
    Your comments about the ozone story are not mentioned or apparently part of this particular study which as JW points out says it studied deuterium.
    So who is playing around with context Bazza? What has ozone got to do with this study Bazza?
    You also can’t seem to help yourself with those silly sneering comments like ‘crass circles’ and ‘exploited’.
    I notice you still haven’t managed to answer any direct questions you have been asked?
    Can’t even seem to come clean on what it is you do for a living that makes you believe that you have the right to put down people like me?
    Maybe you can just go off the rails like Luke obviously has and bring up sceptic tea parties and buried semi automatic guns.:-) 🙂 🙂
    Those sort of comments say way more about you than they do about anyone else.
    ROFL!

    JW…I needed that editing option a couple of days ago…..no idea why one of my comments duplicated.
    I obviously upset the technology somehow and am suspecting that the wireless signal may have had a hissy fit….but that would be me ASSUMING…..which would be wrong of me.

  624. Luke says

    Gee Neville – so the temperature has changed before hey? mmmmmm Now I wonder why? And I wonder what else happened when it did.

    Isn’t it amazing that when it’s happening it’s still not happening. mmmmm

    Back to idolising Pickering with yo’all. Love the comments on his blog. So pleasant.

    Now come on Debs – how many guns have you still got. You can tell us. We won’t dob you in.

  626. Debbie says

    So Luke?
    You just want to talk politics?
    No offence but 7 points is not nearly enough to call it a resurgence.
    I don’t think it’s a good thing but the Labor party nearly got wiped out in QLD.
    Also note this is a poll about Fed Labor seats in QLD.
    Guns Luke?
    Yes farmers own guns. We need them occasionally to shoot feral animals etc.
    No probs with the legality however.
    Can’t buy ammunition unless we have a license. We are also subject to a lot of other rules re storage etc.
    Can’t guarrantee there aren’t old guns buried in the back of old sheds, back of barns or similar though. Probably wouldn’t work anymore but it’s possible that some that used to belong to great grandfathers or whatever are hiding somewhere or other.
    I’ve noticed however that there must be a heap of illegal guns in urban areas according to the MSM. Rather a lot of drive by shootings lately?

  629. bazza says

    Mulvaneys Antarctic paper was simply a record of what happened. Causes were not his brief. Before his comment that he was pressed for there were two other comments Deb, deliberately perhaps , sidestepped.
    “Commenting on the likely cause, Prof Steig told BBC News: “A fingerprint of forced climate change – that is, anthropogenic (man-made) forcing of climate by greenhouse gases – is that it will warm in most places at the same time.

    “And that’s clearly the fingerprint that we are seeing.”

    This is a view shared by Prof Peter Nienow, a glaciologist at the University of Edinburgh, who said: “The significant warming being seen in many places across the planet makes it unlikely that the recent warming reported in this paper is due just to local natural variability.”

    Alternative explanations for the recent warming are awaited.

  630. spangled drongo says

    Luke, how’s that big Labor support jump going for you today?

    Our darling ABC just didn’t want to talk about the NT this morning.

    [only 15% swing in the aboriginal homelands]

  631. Neville says

    On the Bolt report today ex Labor treasurer Keith de Lacy (Qld) called the co2 tax “a collective insanity.”

    He also noted it couldn’t lower co2 emissions or change the climate at all.

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_bolt_report_today20/#commentsmore

    Also ex Labor NSW treasurer Michael Costa solidly endorsed Plimer’s “How to Get expelled”. He stated that Plimer is an unheralded national treasure and his book “systematically debunks the hysteria and misinformation that drives the manufactured political consensus on AGW.”

    He further stated “that ignorance is no longer an excuse for teaching ideology in the place of balanced scientific theory in our schools.”

    These two Labor pollies are to be admired for stating the facts and trying to warn Aussies of the insanity and deception of Gillard’s co2 tax.

  632. debbie says

    Yep,
    noticed that too SD.
    So Luke?
    If you truly want to talk politics here’s a couple of links for you:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous-voters-dump-labor-in-territory-putting-the-clp-back-in-power-after-11-years/story-fn59niix-1226458204734

    http://www.smh.com.au/national/federal-labor-distances-itself-from-nt-loss-20120826-24u4g.html

    That first one is a hair breadth away from being racist. It looks like they thought better of it later in the day. Their real problem looks like ‘the bush’ right across the nation has had enough of this particular federal Govt.
    But the Feds distancing themselves?
    That is just wishful thinking as was your earlier post. That QLD poll is just restoring a little balance in an electorate that nearly wiped out the sitting party. 7% is not anything near enough to make a difference.
    I don’t think it’s a good thing that we’re probably going to witness something close to a wipe out at the next Fed election, but at this point, that is the most likely scenario.
    Lofty goals and ideologies have their place, but they are useless if they are implemented poorly and if they ignore essentials like fiscal responsibility.
    The saddest part is that the opposition don’t really have to offer up any decent policy alternatives, they’re actually better off politically if they don’t.
    That is not a comforting thought for people like me….I couldn’t give a flying rip about particular personalities, I care about sensible policy and even more about responsible implementation of sensible policy.
    The NBN discussion earlier at this thread is a classic example…..I think we do need some sensible investment into this type of infrastructure….but the current Govt just don’t seem to know how to manage it with anything approaching fiscal responsibility…and the NBN is not the only example of this problem.

    Bazza,
    You are correct that Mulvaney’s paper is simply a record.
    I do not understand why you think it’s therefore appropriate for Profs Stieg and Neinow to then use this paper to claim it is proof of a human fingerprint when the report DID NOT come to that conclusion.
    Your call for ‘Alternative Explanations’ is also inappropriate because this paper doesn’t offer anything as an explanation in the first place.
    The main conclusion was that the warming could possibly be seen as unusual but it was not unique.
    The rest, including the quotes you have pulled out is just speculation with no evidence from the paper itself.
    The ‘alternative explanation’ is therefore that so far there is nothing particularly alarming occuring there that hasn’t occured at other times and which humans had nothing to do with.
    Your interpretation along with those 2 Profs looks suspiciously like ‘confirmation bias’.
    They may be right and they may be wrong but this paper does not have any evidence that would prove it either way.
    I will also re iterate that you seemed to think that ozone had something to do with this paper.
    That was after you accused me of misinterpreting what the report studied and researched.
    But nonetheless, well done on managing to be polite about it this time around….except for that ‘deliberately sidestepped’ comment.

  633. cohenite says

    bazza has dredged up Steig to interpret [ie contradict] the Mulvaney paper which shows NOTHING UNUSUAL happening in the Antarctic; that is appropriate since Steig is the co-author of not only arguably the worst paper ‘proving’ warming in the Antarctic but also the man responsible for the delay in publication of a paper which showed why his paper is arguably the worst paper on the Antarctic; see here for details of the whole sorry mess:

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100075232/realclimategate-hits-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-peer-review/

    It occurs to me that the proponents of climate science are perfect bedmates for left-wing/green governments like the current federal one; they have no scruples and are incapable of seeing the moral defects in their actions; usally they are noble cause corruption candiates but really I think it is just a case of truncated ethics in inverse relationship to the size of their egoes.

  634. Debbie says

    Who knows Cohenite?
    There are conspiracy theories flying around left, right & centre, conservative, green and whatever else.
    What I am noticing is flat out incompetence with a large dose of ‘self serving’ thrown in.
    I think that just for a start, the Labor Party should look at sacking their PR dept.
    Their work is woeful.
    I also think they should take a serious look at their penchant for ‘international treaties’ as the electorate are quite obviously not of the same opinion.
    It is actually one of the major reasons that the Howard govt got tossed out and why the electorate liked Julia saying ‘there will be no carbon tax. . . . ‘.
    This lot have proven they are worse!
    It’s a pity however that the opposition don’t have to step up.

  635. Luke says

    Cohenite – wait till they taste the merchandise they’ve paid for.

    Neville – Costa and Plimer – hahahaqhahahahahahahahahaqhahahahhahahah- good one – have some decency

  636. cohenite says

    “wait till they taste the merchandise they’ve paid for.”

    Too cryptic luke, what do you mean?

  637. Debbie says

    Way too cryptic.
    What is your point Luke?
    You do realise that NSW & Vic flipped before QLD and the NT?

  638. gavin says

    Reading up the page, one comment in particular had to be considered. Luke had a go but –

    Nev; have you any idea how just +/- 2C can impact on this planet?

    Deb; you are such a unfaithful creature to reason, when three good guys spend all their time trying to get you over the science hurdles and you don’t budge from your sitting position. Have to agree though, Labor PR is pathetic

  639. gavin says

    btw; ” How long have you been on that machine? “. Spouse said, I’m sick but what excuse have you lot got?

  640. spangled drongo says

    “Nev; have you any idea how just +/- 2C can impact on this planet?”

    gav, not getting it as usual.

    It has always happened in the past [CC].

    How do you prevent it and why should you?

  641. Neville says

    Gav I don’t need any excuse when I state that mitigation of AGW is a fraud and con. I just need to look at the facts and numbers from 1990 to 2010 and use simple kindy maths.

    So what’s your excuse for supporting the co2 tax? Also I suspect that a 2C rise in temp wouldn’t have as much effect on the planet as 10C rise in just ten years.

    At least I hope you’re happy now that the Maldives doesn’t have any problems with that con and fraud of dangerous SLR?

  642. el gordo says

    ‘i have never said all of what pickering said was ok, i have said it is out there and he should be done for slander…I wonder why he wont be?’

    Perhaps he will argue it was meant as satire, but more than likely the PM won’t take him on because the muck is everywhere. Pickering’s assertion that her staff are all Socialist Forum mates could be easily tested and should be.

    In many ways its all west wing for joolya.

  643. Neville says

    Interesting study from antarctica finds that George VI ice shelf disappeared 9500 years ago and didn’t reform for another 1500 years.

    Probably caused by a warmer ocean after a prior warm period. Now where did that warmth come from during the early holocene I wonder? That’s sometime before 9500 years BP.

    The ice shelf is ok today and has been maintained for the last 8000 years.

    http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=57

    I wonder if the warmth then was greater than your 2C Gav and where did it come from? Surely not from that extreme temp increase after the Younger dryas 11,500 years BP?

    Amazing what the planet can do NATURALLY without the help of humans and the effect can be very extreme indeed.

  644. Debbie says

    Which 3 good guys Gavin?
    What ‘scientific’ hurdles Gavin?
    The report did NOT come to any conclusions about a human fingerprint….it was purely a study/record of Antarctica history using deuterium in particular as the benchmark.
    The 3 ‘scientists’ were merely speculating and IMHO using this report inappropriately.
    You seem to be confusing the definition of ‘science’ with ‘scientists’.
    They are NOT the same thing Gavin.
    These scientists are just employed people doing their best to fill their job descriptions…..while they do indeed study science….they are NOT science. A bunch of them agreeing with each other is NOT science either.
    Also Gavin,
    +/- 2 degrees?
    What effect do you think it will have Gavin?
    While I don’t think it’s possible to answer that question with any veracity, you seem to make it sound like it would be something catastrophic if the average global temperatures rose or dropped by 2 degrees.
    Where’s your evidence that it is an imminent disaster Gavin?
    As Luke wailed with many expletives a few days ago:
    Is the sky falling in etc?
    What positive outcome can you see from the current obsession with pricing carbon?
    Unfortunately, it is not only Labor’s PR that has been pathetic….their fiscal behaviour is just as woeful.
    Grand ideas and grand challenges are quickly bad ideas and disasters if they are poorly managed and/ or implemented.

  645. gavin says

    Failed Nev. Sorry, but with all your appreciation of paleo temp changes I reckoned you should know even +/- one degree has a big impact on global conditions.

    “I state that mitigation of AGW is a fraud and con”. Mate, if we made AGW, then we can sure unmake it. Just leave it to the Armstrongs.

    Smile SD

  646. Neville says

    Gav if we need to unmake it then send the non OECD countries to another planet. Their emissions now and into the future are your big problem not mine. It is the most easily understood fraud and con in history, so what’s your problem?

    How much longer can you fools live in denial of simple maths? BTW Amstrong’s mate Aldrin doesn’t believe that AGW is a problem, so you’re really starting to clutch at straws again.

    But tell us how you’d reduce co2 emissions and the change this would make to our temp and climate? Oh yes and tell us when we would be able to measure that change. Would it be in 100 years , 200, 500 or 1000 years or more?

  647. Robert says

    The massive investment in the Maldives had made climate alarmism unprofitable there. Though it’s very low-lying, Kiribati is having all kinds of trouble getting the seas to rise and land area to shrink, though it can manage some erosion here and there, to offset aggregation elsewhere. But it just can’t get the kind of investment the Maldives attract (who can?), so it really needs climate panic for income. With clapped out resources, overpopulation and a limited freshwater lens, you should be able to manage an enviro disaster or two, even if you can’t get that stupid SL to jump. So blur the details!

    If you check that lightning fast google thingy (which Gav likes when he is helping us over scientific hurdles), Kiribati is nothing but a pin-up for CAGW. It’s scattered over a vast area of the tropics, so a decent storm or sand shift will give photo ops galore. When the Kiribati government wanted to buy Fijian land recently (not that unusual) it was portrayed as some kind of mass migration measure.

    Me, I like people, I like change and I like immigration. But we need to stop seeing our region as a backdrop to a preachy Pierce Brosnan disaster movie. Pacific islanders will want to move where there is more wealth and where resources and opportunities abound. The natural destinations are OZ and NZ, though with less welfarism and more dynamism. As to the long term effects of this greater development, hard money buys real conservation, and wealthy humans don’t breed like hamsters.

    Of course, filling the world with “crass” aspirationals will annoy people like bazza – but that’s half the fun!

  648. bazza says

    We can by now safely conclude that Research Methodology, Physical Chemistry, Journalism 1 and Introduction to Ethics were not among the subjects embraced in the 3 degrees of Deb. ( But she mastered Emoticon 101). She has had a few goes at misleading on the Antarctica link she supplied. Even the dogged Cohenite , self-styled leader of the pack self-enveigled. But he had to resort to inadmissable evidence. Deb has but two cards in her pack, the joker and conning with confirmation bias. Debs takes included “The main conclusion was that the warming could possibly be seen as unusual but it was not unique” Take 2:”So….let me see…. the warming is not unusual but it could still conceivably perhaps maybe have a human fingerprint at the moment? Because….it seems it could be perhaps be a bit faster than before?” . What will take 3 be?. Who cares.
    The unspun facts were: not unusual – sure in the last 15,000 years , but only once over 10,000 years ago.
    Take 2 : “a bit faster “– “ the research showed that the recent rate of change in the peninsula has been considerably faster.”
    Prof Steig said the fingerprint of forced climate change is at will warm in most places at the same time. And all Cohenite could do was go the ad hom.

  650. Debbie says

    So Bazza?
    What should we ‘conclude’ about you?
    You have been directly asked what you do and what it is about what you do that makes you believe you have the right to sneer at people.
    I am sorry it upsets you that I have a very good education. It doesn’t change the fact.
    I have already given you permission to engage on my other name tags.
    When you’re ready to come clean on your identity and your quals, if you really think it’s so important, I’ll illuminate you on my tertiary quals.

  651. bazza says

    I will say again – it matters not what you are it is what you contribute and anybody who has to plug there expertise in some ways is losing it. Evidence should be independent of who it is coming from. I dont care to waist my time and yours on irrlevancies. Maybe you could go spray some bennies. ( clue – I have done a bit of IPM).

  652. bazza says

    Apologies , the odd spelling error/typo is either evidence of my time management or some crums for the resident spell checker/record keeper. Sorry , nothing for Nev as long as he believes as international diplomacy on mitigating AGW is played out , feedback free, with sums of the form 1+1=2.

  653. Johnathan Wilkes says

    (clue – I have done a bit of IPM).

    Should have paid more attention in english classes (spelling and grammar specifically) instead.
    “waist” indeed?
    But then again, edumacation is a dirty word in your circles.

    And fancy this coming from a cheap accountant too?

  655. spangled drongo says

    “Evidence should be independent of who it is coming from.”

    Ya talkin religous or scientific, baz?

  656. Robert says

    Bazza, it’s not the “crums”, it’s the entire loaves of illiteracy. If you were less of a patronising snob, I’m sure we’d mind less.

    I see little use in apologising for sloppy language, then immediately following with:
    “Sorry , nothing for Nev as long as he believes as international diplomacy on mitigating AGW is played out , feedback free, with sums of the form 1+1=2.”

    Bazza, you need to choose between being inarticulate and being a snob. The one does not accommodate the other.

    Also, the sneering at Deb’s qualifications (mentioned by Luke and you far more than by Deb) would still be odious, even if it was witty. As things stand, the sneering is merely odious.

    Let’s be friends, bazza. Stop bunging on the superiority, and you can mangle the language as much as you like. Nobody will mind.

  657. debbie says

    But Bazza?
    You and Luke are forever castigating people for not respecting ‘scientists’ and their ability to have their work published in ‘serious’ journals.
    You are also quick to dismiss anybody who comments on these things unless you perceive them as a ‘who’s who ‘in the world of ‘climate science’.
    It seems you are the one who is guiltiest of all of ignoring ‘what’ people contribute in favour of ‘who’ they are.
    You are the one who is forever attempting ‘character assassination’ and forever attempting to ‘shoot the mesenger’ rather than discussing the actual message.
    Look to your own MO Bazza.
    Being a ‘patronising snob’ as Robert puts it….is not a good look.
    You can be polite if you try….I have seen it happen a couple of times.

  658. bazza says

    I suppose my odd error of the spelling kind could be construed as lack of respect for the high standards here. But , in a card I should not play, I am self employed and finalising a lengthy report which, you will be pleased to here, will be accepted as error free ( both logic and language ) . Thus my haste in taking an occasional procrastination break. Then again, if it wasn’t for my lapses what would you guys comment on – the science.? Perhaps the tone of my responses reflects frustration that I dont see any behaviour which would categorise you as sceptics – you are so locked into denial that you cannot sustain polite discourse, and you are all so loyal to some of the rubbish other denialists put up on any topic. Coincidence? I think not. A six pack – yes.

  660. Neville says

    Thanks bazza you’ve just proved my point that I’m right and you’re wrong. But don’t worry Luke can’t answer it and Gav can’t answer it either, so you’re in good company. NOT.

    Until you and yours wake up you’ll always be in denial. The answer is just that blindingly obvious and easy to understand. This is just simple logic and reasoning for 5 year olds.

    The mitigation of AGW is a total con and fraud, whether you choose to admit it or not.

  661. Robert says

    “Thus my haste in taking an occasional procrastination break.”

    Be careful. One should never hasten procrastination.

    On the other hand, I’m pleased to “here” that your lengthy report will be error free – logic and language!

  663. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Well folks what can one say?

    Robert, you beat me to it, that report be better sent to a proof reader first.

    Luke give it a rest, even you are not good enough to save him, not when he is in self-destruct mode anyway.

  664. Robert says

    I hope bazza’s report, whatever it is, meets with great success. I’m always boosted when anyone has a go, especially if it’s off his or her own bat. Yes, JW, in bazza’s case one would suggest very heavy proof-reading, but I admire that sort of initiative enormously.

    Similarly, I’m impressed by Deb being mother, wife, business-owner and food producer. The fact that she has acquired three degrees (mentioned by her in-context and only after some prodding) is proof that she likes to stay busy. I still don’t get the orchestrated shrieking which followed her disclosure of that simple fact.

  665. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Robert,
    “I’m always boosted when anyone has a go”

    So am I. My guiding principle in starting new things is; “if someone succeeded before, we all have a chance!”
    Start worrying when none can make it.

    I don’t particularly care about spelling as such on a blog, but as you said, when somebody claims the moral and intellectual high-ground then at least they should live up to it.

  667. bazza says

    thanks luke for the Qld gun laws story. I bet there are a few potential Dick Cheyneys about up there. The ironic bit was he was out quayle (no, not him) hunting and shot one of his campaign contributors. He only put in a grand so be generous when can do calls. I sometimes think that gun slinger right in the USA constitution was a typo or a dash of dyslexia – the right to harm bears – that was the intention.
    I didnt think you knew about the iridology – it is just a sideline, but interesting because it is evidence free.

  668. Luke says

    Guys have some respect for Bazza (Mr Bazza to you, Bazza to his business associates) is a busy man – being none other than Reggie Balowski, International arms dealer, scrap metal merchant and manager of a French cabaret chanteuse. And I apologise, I normally proof read his posts but was out getting his dry cleaning.

  669. cohenite says

    From luke’s link:

    “Firearms dealers, sporting shooters and hunters are represented on a new Newman government committee looking for ways to cut “red tape” for legitimate firearm owners.

    Announcing the new ministerial weapons advisory panel, Police and Community Safety Minister Jack Dempsey said the group would advise him on “how to reduce the red tape, delays and bureaucracy legitimate firearms users face when applying for a licence or new weapon”.

    From my experience the quickest way to reduce red tape is to shoot it, just shoot it right down.

  670. debbie says

    Luke,
    We have a gun for legitimate reasons…they are sometimes necessary in our environment.
    It is registered and we follow all the red tape that is required to own one.
    It is close to ridiculous how much red tape is actually involved….and despite all that red tape…..there have been an alarming number of shooting incidents in Sydney in the past 12 months (according to MSM) and they are not registered or legal guns…they’re not the people who are doing the right thing.
    So if the Newman Govt is looking at ways to reduce the red tape for legitimate gun licences/gun ownership…what would be the harm in that?
    It certainly doesn’t mean that everyone will be allowed to own one or that there will be an alarming increase in gun ownership….the actual reasons why people would apply and what the legitimate reasons are to own guns will unlikely change.
    I fail to see why you and Bazza think it’s alarming or a reason to sneer?

  671. Luke