Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Open Thread

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“There is no environmental reason for people to go hungry now or in the future. There is no need to use any more land to sustain humanity… Creek north of Byfield
The only limit to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social systems.”
Erle C. Ellis writing in the New York Times

Reader Interactions

Comments

  5. Larry Fields says

    One of the nice things about Open Thread is seeing links to the best articles at other blogs. That said, …

    Rooftop solar panels pose dangers, Ontario firefighters say

    CBC News Posted: Sep 12, 2013 11:49 AM ET Last Updated: Sep 13, 2013 1:50 PM ET

    Some say rooftop solar panels make it difficult to fight fires and can be dangerous to firefighters.

    Kingsville fire Chief Bob Kissner teaches courses across Ontario on how to fight fires in the modern home. In Windsor-Essex, he also teaches a regional course on fighting fires involving structures equipped with solar panels.

    He said solar panels can affect their ability to cut a vent through the roof; are, in some cases, an electrocution hazard; and can weaken, meaning it may collapse sooner than a full strength roof.

    “Many of the newer homes are constructed with light-weight construction materials. They’re extremely strong but they don’t behave well in fire conditions,” said Kissner, who has been fighting fires for 33 years. “If we have solar panels, it adds weight to the roof. The most important thing is to make sure the structure is able to handle the weight.”

    Panels also change the way firefighters battle a blaze. Kissner said firefighters can’t walk on them or cut through them.

    “Sometimes we need to cut the roof to ventilate and let hot smoke and gas out,” Kissner said. “If there are panels there, we have to do it at the gable end.”

    Some of the panels simply can’t be shut down by the fire department, Kissner said.

    “As long as light is hitting them, they can, and likely are, producing electricity,” Kissner said. “Many of the panels can’t be shut off. “We need a solar technician to kill that power.

    “We can shut the power off at the inverter, but we’re always assuming the wire from the panel to the inverter is live.”

    Read more here.
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/rooftop-solar-panels-pose-dangers-ontario-firefighters-say-1.1700070

    Larry’s comment. A point of clarification: Solar panels on your house do not necessarily increase your risk of being burned to a crisp.

    The biggest risks are to firefighters — especially during daylight hours. And because of the delays and obstacles inherent in putting out fires in solar-powered houses, it’s more likely that your Green home will burn to the ground if it does catch fire.

    It would be more reasonable for a homeowner to limit his Green dreams to a low-tech solar water heater, and to take a pass on the fancy schmancy solar panels. It will take time for building codes to catch up with the photovoltaic technology.

  6. hunter says

    What next? How about pointing out that Paul Ehrlich and his ilk have corrupted science. And on top of being flat out wrong, that his acolytes have been infesting governments and NGOs and academia undermining society and enriching themselves.

  7. beththeserf says

    Say, Larry, the law of unexpected consequences operatin’. Sometimes yer read
    a book that’s seminal ter yer thinkin’, or with serfs, what passes fer thinkin’.
    Nassim Taleb’s ‘Black Swan’on how we’re jest not good at predictin’ and Karl
    Popper on theories have consequences undreamed of, Horatio, by their creators.
    taking on a life of theirown. (Karl R Popper ‘Objective Knowledge.’)
    Jest a serf.

  10. Avatar photojennifer says

    Neville,

    I just remembered… it was John Howard who bestowed the title of ‘Australian of the Year’ on Flannery in 2007.

  11. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Jennifer,

    If possible I dislike JH more than TA but please, there is not a lot a prime minister can do to override the recommendations of a committee.

    Sure he/she could but at what cost and they don’t know the future holds either?

  12. Avatar photojennifer says

    Come on Johnathan… About half the current cabinet were falling over backwards to praise Flannery and the Wentworth Group not so many years ago. Now they, and their supporters, are pretending it was all the fault of the previous Labour government. Such short memories.

  13. Avatar photojennifer says

    And the funding, the money that Mr Howard and others heaped on Flannery through the WWF. Abbott was a part of all of that.

  14. Johnathan Wilkes says

    In this case pox on all of them.

    You obviously pay more attention to their shenanigans than I do.
    Pity you for it but it helps in your job I suppose so you have to do.

  15. Avatar photojennifer says

    Johnathan,

    I pay attention because, beginning with John Howard and his plan to save the Great Barrier Reef… well that was really the beginning of the end of my opportunity for employment in the mainstream… certainly the end of my respect for government decision making… because state and federal government decision making in natural resource management and environmental areas became totally corrupt IMO under Howard, particularly with Senator Robert Hill as Minister.

    I have never been more humiliated than I was sitting on government committees being told by his policy advisers and bureaucrats that I might be on the side of truth, but that I was swimming against the tide.

  16. Johnathan Wilkes says

    Jennifer you get no arguments from me re. govmnts.

    I’m an anarchist with enough sense to realise that we need a bit more governance than the pure anarchists want.
    But that governing body has to be severely limited in its power and be able to be sacked at a moments notice.

    As to Rob Hill and JH you ruined my evening mentioning them.

  17. Larry Fields says

    Comment from: jennifer September 19th, 2013 at 11:40 pm
    “I have never been more humiliated than I was sitting on government committees being told by his policy advisers and bureaucrats that I might be on the side of truth, but that I was swimming against the tide.”

    I’m glad that in your own way, you’re continuing to fight the good fight. Since I’m not an Aussie, it may not be appropriate to say this, but to hell with propriety: You’re a national treasure!

  18. Neville says

    Jennifer I wish you would tell me something I don’t know for a change. Yes Howard named him OZ of the year????? because he had to, or didn’t you know that as well?

    The PM always accepts the nomination from the committee and if he didn’t the MSM would have labeled it the crime of the century.

    I can assure you that Flannery would have been the last fool that either Howard or his govt would have nominated had they the freedom to do so.

    Unlike you I understand that even sceptics like Howard and Abbott couldn’t behave and say the things like you and I could at that time. And they still can’t.
    BTW I’m sure like me they believe in some AGW in the system but not CAGW. But they’re in good company because just about every credible sceptical scientist does.

    Anyway thank gawwd they’ve sacked him and his cohorts and given time they may be able to explain more to the OZ electorate about the stupidity of AGW mitigation. Who knows?

    Here’s more from the Bolter on the Flannery sacking and I agree he should have refunded all of his salary. His dud predictions were useless to put it mildly.

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

  19. Debbie says

    Pretty much everyone thought TF was cool back then. Hell! Even I did!!!. . . and I have never been a fan of bloated bureaucracies. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since that period and I have learned that much of what I thought was genuine care for the environment was in fact junk science.
    So far. . . it looks like our new gummint has recognised that the electorate is fed up with the wasteful, emotional, impractical junk that we’ve been getting dished up.
    But we will have to wait and see.
    The bureaucrats that have been moved on were involved in ag, NRM, & Foreign Affairs. If the new govt is genuine about its promises re these areas then moving on those inclined to protect their patch rather than be involved in genuine reform and restructure is a good place to start (IMHO).
    I don’t agree that TF should be punished. He was filling his job description. I am however pleased that he has been moved on.

  20. Johnathan Wilkes says

    ‘His dud predictions were useless’

    No, the were more than that, they cost us dearly, true not by himself but he was the figurehead.

    I agree with you on the PM has to accept the recommendation of a nominating committee.
    But a smart PM also has the power to stack that committee with like minded people.

    Labor made excellent/brutal use of that power both federally and here in Victoria, what bugs me is the weakness of the LNP in remedying the situation.
    What are they afraid of? The MSM could not be more hostile to them if they tried anyway, so what’s to lose?

  21. cohenite says

    Yes Howard opened the gate for the madness of AGW, just like Thatcher did in England. They were conned by perfidious scientists, ideologically driven who were, as the emails plainly show, prepared to subvert scientific process for the cause.

    In the US, prohibition irrevocably corrupted the justice system; arguably AGW has done the same for science.

  22. davefromweewaa says

    Hi Jennifer,
    How much taxpayer money does the WWF (and all the other misanthropic campaigners against sustainable production) get ?
    Anything above zero is too much IMO.

  23. Jennifer Marohasy says

    Hey Dave

    Have a look through the report ‘Taming the Panda’ which you should be able to download as a pdf from here…

    http://apo.org.au/research/taming-panda-relationship-between-wwf-australia-and-howard-government

    It shows the jump in funding to NGO’s under John Howard with the WWF alone receiving about $3.6 million dollars in direct federal government funding in 2002.

    At the time (perhaps 2003-2005) I had various conversations with people like Tim Flannery when we spoke at the same events. Flattery told me the extent to which John Howard was their mate. I was excluded/those invitations stopped though in about 2006-7, after which it became totally unacceptable to be an AGW denier.

    Mr Howard’s policy advisors told me that John always felt somewhat humbled, as a one time suburban solicitor, to now have such intellectual giants as Flannery advising him, and befriending him.

    At the time I thought it so obvious that they were feeding him flattery and bullshit. And Flannery was kind enough to tell me as much one day as we shared a taxi to the Melbourne airport.

    BTW all the bullshitters and flatters have over the last 10 years been well paid and now have fancy CVs and are in positions of significant power including within Coalition ranks. Meanwhile those who told the truth have been mostly unemployed or under-employed or had to go overseas to find employment.

    The change of government in Queensland changed nothing. With Campbell Newman and his crew refusing to touch the corrupt science managers, but rather his government has just kept feeding them.

  24. Robert says

    “The fact is that we have got to make a choice between human prosperity on the one hand and the total well-being of the planet Earth on the other.” – HRH (senior, who’s even worse than junior)

    Why did people not sit up and notice when the former UK president of the World Wildlife Fund made it perfectly clear what modern environmentalism entails? (Wildlife fund? As wild dogs and cats tear apart what’s left of the wildlife in the bush adjacent to my house, it’s pretty clear that koalas count as fund raising symbols, not as animals which just want to chew on their tallowood leaves and raise their joeys. A gun is the best wildlife conservationist I know.)

    Anybody who thinks the Duke of Edinburgh is some kind of adorable old duffer who makes deliciously incorrect gaffes needs to examine his utterances on the environment over the decades. The fiend who said the above said this too:
    “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”

    That was in case you missed it when he wrote, a few years earlier:
    “I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.”

    I happen to be a monarchist (yeah, I know, everybody laugh!), but if a Prince Philip declares war on my favourite species – people! – I declare war on him. And I don’t see the WWF as something which should be defunded. I see them as something to be wiped out.

    Listening, Tony Abbott?

  25. Beth Cooper says

    Time fer a serf up risin’ I’d say, nothin’ too bloody but vociferuss enuff ter
    make the cabals take note. Suggestions invited … cracks ter let in the light.

    Wipin’ out the WWF fer… er… naychur is a start. Policy advice ter guvuhmint
    has ter cover multi perspectives and evidence.
    Beth the serf.

  26. beththeserf says

    Time fer a serf uprisin’ nothing too bloody but voci-ferus enuff ter make cabals
    take notice cracks ter let the light in. Policy advisers ter guvuhmint not ter act
    like devil’s advocates but present the different sides to a position and the
    EVI-DENCE fer amd/or against Tsk! Gettin’ rid of Flannery is a step in the
    right direction, now fer the WWF fer …er….Naychur.

  28. spangled drongo says

    The beauty of nature makes the greenie want to obliterate the human race.

    The innocent v the guilty and the innocent always lose.

    But they got it arse-up as usual.

    The oceans just ate their glowball temps!

  29. sp says

    JEN: “BTW all the bullshitters and flatters have over the last 10 years been well paid and now have fancy CVs”

    Bullshit baffles science (engineering) any day! I have learned that at great personal cost – but still prefer the truth (how elusive it is).

    Robert on HRH: “I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.”

    I thought he wanted to return as sanitary pad close to Camilla? (from some secret tape?)

  30. Luke says

    Jen sez

    “The change of government in Queensland changed nothing. With Campbell Newman and his crew refusing to touch the corrupt science managers, but rather his government has just kept feeding them.”

    Really what sections would be corrupt?

    What hasn’t been rolled back – veg laws, Wild Rivers, leasehold assessment
    Grazing in National Parks is cool, horse ride and FWD where you like. LNG facility at Gladstone going gangbusters. Gas wells a pumpin’. Coal trains sprinkling pixie dust. Lead particles a drifting. 130km/hr no worries. And you have a BIG dinosaur to replace the Big Banana.

    It’s back to the good old days. YEE HA !!!!!! Ride’m cowboy.

    I suppose licencing homosexuality and liberating semi-autos is next. Happiness is a warm libertarian gun (although removed from cold dead hands doesn’t sort of work does it?)

  31. sp says

    Quote from another blog:

    The greens rose to power because money men finally worked out how to make a profit out of angry hippy wankers.

  32. Luke says

    http://theconversation.com/is-global-warming-in-a-hiatus-18367

    Of course how history remembers all this is quite interesting. Plan B Bob would have derived paleo climate sensitivity be probably be about 3C.

    So when the warming resumes and it will “Happy Days will be an end my friends”. Although Bob#2 didn’t do that well so bad analogy perhaps.

    Then we’ll have to licence sceptics not guns.

    I always loved this Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcUxiaT5wIY Poor Bob#2

  33. Robert says

    The Conversation. What a dreary compedium of snobbery, conceit and spin. Where the urban green zealots go for their fix of rehearsed indignation and trashy pseudo-science.

    Please don’t tell me my taxes are funding that reeking pile of slop.

  34. hunter says

    Luke is now in “failed prophet mode”: “Just because I was wrong does not mean I won’t be proven right, and then you sure will be sorry.”

  36. Avatar photojennifer says

    Luke, Just to quote you, quoting me…

    “The change of government in Queensland changed nothing. With Campbell Newman and his crew refusing to touch the corrupt science managers, but rather his government has just kept feeding them.”

    We could start all over again with the scientists managing the GBR programs if you like. Nothing has changed.

    http://jennifermarohasy.com/saving-the-great-barrier-reef/

  39. Robert says

    Supercell, you’ve been reading trashy internet mags and getting overstimulated. For the last time, climate is not a computer game guided by La Nina and El Nino buttons with CO2 and aerosol over-ride. That stuff is for the under-40s, and most unbecoming at your advanced age.

    Now go back over to the Deltoids and bark it out of your system.

  40. Neville says

    I’ve been too busy today but good to come back and catch up. The old Duke isn’t all bad, he hates wind farms for example and btw that Suzuki dingbat once called humans maggots.

    So I suppose we can just throw our hands up and all become self absorbed selfish nongs or anarchists and manage to get nowhere fast.

    But first we could use our brains when voting and choose a zero BS small govt and low tax freedom party, but then make bloody sure that the Greens and Labor receive our last preference.

    If you still think that Howard then ( 1996 to 2007 ) or Abbott now is little different than those other totalitarian groupthink experts you’ve understood nothing and you should enrole yourself in a course of logic and reasoning, plus try and develop some plain common sense.

    The Abbott govt is just a day old and already they’ve sacked silly Tim and his silly mates and hopefully by July 2014 they’ll repeal Labor’s idiot co2 tax.
    If they also carefully manage the budget and stop any further blow out by July ’14 I’ll be very satisfied and call it a very good first 10 months, but it’s a big ask.

  42. Robert says

    Neville, I think an Abbott government is far preferable to the alternative. Like FAR. And I think there were plenty of benefits from the Howard/Costello years. But if we keep the pressure up and create the demand, it may well be possible for Abbott to do a Merkel and divert Direct Action funds toward some real energy savings, such as extending and modernising coal power in Oz. If nobody asks for it, nobody gets it. Conservation means conserving coal, money, ag land, wilderness, road surfaces, air, water or whatever has value. Environmentalism is the enemy of conservation because it thinks massive waste is okay in the service of green theology. (When I think of the food that’s getting chucked because of the skyrocketing price of refrigerant gases due to CO2 tax!) No waste is okay, and that includes Direct Action as it stands now.

    I appreciate that Abbott has to walk a narrow political line, and watch for the knives. That’s his job, and he seems to be doing it well. Sacking Timmy makes sense, but a modernisation of coal power, for example, makes money for every Australian. It doesn’t just redistribute money, it makes money and saves money. I don’t know how Jen votes, but I don’t in the least bit mind her raising the bar for the incoming government by reminding it of past green follies by conservatives.

    I’m not disagreeing with you on much at all, Nev. But do we really need to protect our guys the way the Left protects theirs? Nah, let’s give our own guys a good sledging. They’ll be all the better for it. We’re conservatives. We don’t do “group”.

  43. Luke says

    “Supercell, you’ve been reading trashy internet mags and getting overstimulated. For the last time, climate is not a computer game guided by La Nina and El Nino buttons with CO2 and aerosol over-ride. That stuff is for the under-40s, and most unbecoming at your advanced age.”

    So I guess it’s witchcraft, superstition and endless meaningless drifting answers by gramps.

    A twilight of ignorance drifting off into clouded senility. With increasing anger that it doesn’t make sense.

    And you’re “keeping the pressure up” are you? Really? Direct line to Tony in the dorm. I saw the phone next to his bed. Having another Walter Mitty moment of blood rushing to the head.

    ” But do we really need to protect our guys the way the Left protects theirs? ” Really? How horrid?

    And now Wattscrook has descended into quoting Judith Curry quoting someone who quoted someone. Really?

  44. spangled drongo says

    “Please don’t tell me my taxes are funding that reeking pile of slop.”

    If there was ever an obvious way to save a billion….

  46. Neville says

    Robert I think most of us here are on the same page for sure, but we probably have differences that we would write on that page.

    I’m all for building more cheap, reliable and proven CF power stations as soon as possible, it’s not only preferable but it is a must.
    I can offer a way to build more cheap, reliable and long lasting modern CF stations and still save on co2 emissions. This couldn’t be easier and just requires simple auditing every year of our exports of coal, iron ore and gas etc.

    Last year we exported about 200+ million tonnes of iron ore and hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal, gas etc.
    All we need is a proper ongoing audit of these export tonnages during each financial year and use a verifiable agreed formula to reduce that tonnage by a small percentage that would equal our supposed 5% reduction of emissions by 2020.

    Therefore any given 12 months when we would expect to export a collective tonnage of coal, iron ore and gas etc we would simply reduce that total by 30 th of June by say 2% or whatever the agreed formula decreed.

    This would shift the emphasis away from dopey all pain and zero gain in OZ and achieve the same reduction target through our exports.

    The atmosphere would still have the agreed reduction of OZ emissions every year ( via reduced exports) and we could build cheap reliable new CFired PStns just like Germany.
    This would require honest veriable auditing to reduce that tonnage as per the agreed formula.

    Just compare this to the corrupt rackets and frauds of the EU carbon certificates that can’t be verified at all. The Mafia and others have had a field day in many countries across the EU and police have had to raid banks etc to try and follow the money trails.

    And if it means that coal loaders etc have to have a few more off days per year then so what. This just requires simple maths and agreement to follow the proper formula plus rigorous auditing every week to achieve the same co2 reductions, but through exports and not here in OZ.

    BTW I’m sure that the Greens would hate the idea because they want us to suffer for our prosperity and hit us in the neck with much higher energy costs every year to slow economic development.
    I’m not sure that some on Labor’s left think much different than the Greens either.

  48. Avatar photojennifer says

    Nice to see Luke admit that reef science is corrupt.

    I could move on to forestry, fishing, management of the groundwater resource… for examples of corrupt government science in Queensland. But would have to do more digging as I’ve not written so much about these topics.

    Better we perhaps move to solutions? Here is an idea from Peter Ridd…

    http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11455

  51. Ian Thomson says

    “BTW I’m sure that the Greens would hate the idea because they want us to suffer for our prosperity and hit us in the neck with much higher energy costs every year to slow economic development.
    I’m not sure that some on Labor’s left think much different than the Greens either.”

    Neville, the first utterings I have heard from this new Govt involve “freeing up foreign investment,”
    “increasing the allowable Chinese investment ceiling,” ( Read purchases of chunks of Oz by foreign Govts), “accelerating the China free trade negotiations ” and giving a SA based Water Minister carte blanche with the Murray River. Oh and scrapping the Mining Tax.

    So it will be easier and cheaper to export Oz’s raw materials to China, then import the widgets they make with them and harder and more expensive to make or grow anything here.
    Greens’ll love it. Kevvy will get a nice job in China and Harvey Norman will only need an internet tax,
    to reach Nirvana.

  52. Robert says

    Nev, I’d go further and treat the whole thing as the silly game it really is.

    Australia should be a coal based nation till something even better comes along (but coal is so terrific that won’t be soon). Because coal is our great advantage, most of our efforts in improving energy efficiency should go into that. We should be thrifty, modern and clean, like a late model car running perfectly. R&D will be a natural concomitant. The only accounting should be show accounting, because that’s all anyone else does. Germany projects its brown coal initiatives as anti-nuke. France projects its nukes as anti-carbon. Russia and Gazprom are great planet savers because…they’ll think of something. China has developed the art of promising very sincerely, and leaving it at that. Norway uses hydro because the country is shaped right for hydro, but to get really rich they export lots and lots of oil. Their hydro makes them pious and acceptable to Gaia, the oil makes ’em rich. It’s a game!

    We should project the modernisation of coal as anti-waste and pro-CO2 reduction. The important thing is to treat it as a game and not to do anything except mind our own interests and grow rich through using coal, not just exporting it. We should not reduce any of our “emissions” except on paper or except as a by-product of much better efficiency in burning coal.

    David Suzuki is an old lecher who jets around the world hoovering up money from saps. He flies with a tin cup around his neck to show the world he is interested in saving resources (and to annoy cabin staff). Instead of getting angry at Suzuki, we should learn from him. Just play every game hard with the intention of coming out on top. (Go the Swans!)

  53. Debbie says

    Yes Jen. Same s**t different day. Government funding in NRM always seems to end up corrupting the process somehow.

  54. Ian Thomson says

    Very well put Robert,
    What if the mining tax were replaced with a requirement to provide some minute part of the minerals to Australia at the wholesale rates they receive ? Or a requirement for even a small development using same product IN Australia. The miner could still make a profit from its use.
    Gas is a stand out.

    And it doesn’t worry me if it’s Swans or Freo, just as long as they massacre Hawthorn next week.

  55. Luke says

    Jen – you are verballing me.

    I didn’t say (or didn’t mean to necessarily imply) reef science was corrupt. I was simply concluding for you that seemed to be about it.

    But you made a strong general statement about Queensland govt science managers being corrupt (that doesn’t include by the way CSIRO, AIMS, GBRMPA, WWF or others – not Qld govt). Now corrupt is a pretty strong term – to me falsifying evidence for personal gain or being able to be bought. Obviously governments of all flavours will set boundaries to what science they wish explored (or staff would be unaccountable and that would set Debs off 🙂 )

    Anyway I wanted to know what was on your mind to back up such a strong statement when Newman is reversing decades of Labor environmental initiatives. Thought you were bunging it on a bit and hard to please. At the current rate you’ll have the full unrestricted dream soon. You’ll be able to root it, shoot it, chop it down and dig it up at will. But as we know at some point public pressure will build up and all parties will return to the table asking scientists to do something about it. Pendulums swing. Tides go in and out. And be nice to the people you meet on the way up as you will see them again on the way down. Some of us foolish souls of course simply thought a balance could be reached by dialogue, good will, good science, technology and cooperation.

    But on reef of course – quite good evidence that agricultural runoff is having some impact on the reef and the DIN is implicated in COTS outbreaks. I suggest if you’re arguing about increased emissions of sediment, nutrients and pesticides you’re in significant denial (and please don’t quote Duke). And of course better farming practices can reduce all of that – not wasting valuable fertiliser inputs, targeting pesticides properly, and keeping soil on the paddock not the creeks.

    Remember the old joke – “why visit the outback when you can sit on the Burdekin at Home Hill and watch it flow past”.

    So improving farm practices is good economics, good resource management and good for reducing emissions into waterways and the reef lagoon. Given this is the basis of the Queensland Government reef science program do I take you think that work is corrupt, not useful or misguided. And someone is being “paid off” to do it? Or making up fertiliser trial results Or runoff data results? Or cooking lab figures?

    As for Peter Ridd – one wonders how the world has progressed scientifically and technologically given the world’s science is corrupt? And peer review broken. I wonder how my iPad works. Better go check the CSG shares on the my rare earth element containing iPad before I warm lunch in the microwave. (must work by witchcraft)

    Groundwater levels – http://www.santoswaterportal.com.au/ Want to check some levels? Think before you shut the gate.

    And as for AGW being dead – I feel more confident that ever that the threat long term is there. The level of risk though is uncertain. And I’m surprised Bob hasn’t appraised you on palaeo sensitivity and the fairly robust findings, including Eeemian sea level. Anyway Flannery still gives good mammal and he’s probably laughing all the way to the bank.

  56. davefromweewaa says

    Keep your chin up Jennifer.
    Some of the wrongologists and flatterers are clearly in decline as far as influence goes. On the other hand your own influence has probably not peaked yet. A lot more people are now aware of Tim Flannery’s dodgieness thanks to you.
    I think it is the Labor party that is most in need of a change of attitude on environmental issues. I grant you that there are plenty of city and South Australian based Liberals who need some pretty serious panel beating too, but Labor are something else ! I think if Labor stopped sucking up to the Greens and argued the case FOR sustainable production from renewable resources (you know, farming, irrigation, forestry and fishing), the Greens would wither back to under five percent of the primary vote.

  57. kuhnkat says

    Luke,

    “Jen – you are verballing me.”

    Strange, I didn’t hear anything!!

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  58. kuhnkat says

    Luke,

    “So when the warming resumes and it will “Happy Days will be an end my friends”. Although Bob#2 didn’t do that well so bad analogy perhaps.”

    and you think us young earth creationists are delusional!!

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  59. sp says

    Luke:

    “Some of us foolish souls of course simply thought a balance could be reached by dialogue, good will, good science, technology and cooperation.”

    What a funny guy!! A bit deluded, but still funny ……. in a sick sort of way. hahaha

  60. Debbie says

    Luke,
    Of course improved practices is a good idea. You seem to think it was driven by the depts that Jen has mentioned? I am a NSW farmer, but I suspect it is little different here. The big improvements have NOT (repeat NOT!) been primarily faciliated by recent NRM govt bureaucracy. Rather the reverse has been the case. The people and the funding sources Jen mentions have mostly been anti agriculture and highly obstructive to any development in agriculture. I am away from home at the moment, but if you google ‘get back to me’ there is a youtube video that sums up part of this issue re attitudes. I have limited access via this tablet where I am at the moment and I am having trouble linking it.
    Jen’s comment re adding the words and emphasising ‘climate change’ is what happens here too.

  61. BethCooper says

    Listen ter Deb,
    I always thought improvements and innovation in agriculture and industry came
    from people with skin in the game, not dinosaur bureaucracies. Yes Minister?

  62. Luke says

    Trying thinking Beth – that would be why industry is all running at A and B practice. Why some producers don’t even do basic things like soil tests before wasting fertiliser. hmmmmm
    It’s easy just to sprout something isn’t it. Soil testing is “highly obstructive” is it? Grow up Beth.

  63. Debbie says

    Yes Beth. 🙂
    . Much of what is happening is very much like ‘Yes Minister’. I can easily think of numerous doubles for Sir Humphrey Appelby in the NRM space. No doubt it is quite similar in other areas.

  64. Debbie says

    Good grief Luke! Are you claiming that NRM bureaucracies are the only ones who understand or undertake soil testing?
    ROFL!
    Pull the other one!

  66. Luke says

    Well Debs that probably explains why some producer still apply vast wasteful amounts of N which costs money (but not enough obviously), measured in runoff and the streams, is detected isotopically right through the reef system and is implicated heavily in enhanced COTS survival.

    So just perhaps given the level of practice government might intervene cooperatively with industry to lift practice. How incredibly evil of them. How corrupt. And those corrupt industry types are actually going along with it. More corruption. ….. sigh … those rotten scientists out there designing test kit systems, researching legumes and better ways to apply N, including precision agriculture. The sheer extent of the evil Debs. Must be stopped. Jen’s on it.

  67. Debbie says

    And pleeeeeaaaaassssseeee do tell who these mysterious ‘some producers’ are?
    WTF?
    I will let you into a well known truism Luke.
    In every possible business or profession that you could care to name, there are ALWAYS SOME who don’t do the right thing.

  69. John Sayers says

    I understand why Howard etc were sucked into the AGW web back in his day. Everyone was, except me who was visiting breakfornews.com and that mad Irishman Fintan Dunn was exposing the BS of global warming to anyone interested. That’s where I first learnt that CO2 was logarithmic and we were well up the curve.

    By 2008-9 it was pretty clear it was BS to anyone who had the nouse to investigate it but by then it was also well ensconced into mainstream thinking which is why Flannery was Australian of the Year in 2007 plus he had his ABC video with Roy Slaven that kept his popularity in your face, remember the next year was awarded to Lee Kernaghan, the country singer.

    I’m pretty sure Tony is a true sceptic by now, Jones has berated him for the past 3 years and sacking TF and closing down $9 billion worth of green adventures is no mean feat and to do it within days of the election shows me he damn well means it.

    the backlash from the laborites has been vindictive, petulant and seriously angry – good! If they follow the current press they might get an inkling as to why the worldwide mood has changed but it’s going to be a slow process turning around the battleship of HMS – AGW.

  70. Luke says

    John finds out that CO2 is logarithmic and thinks he’s in on something. Doesn’t really matter what the global mood is or what Tony thinks. The atmosphere will make it’s won decisions.

  72. Luke says

    Vindicated – hahahahaha

    John climate science has only known about the logarithmic response for about 100 years. Not new. Do you think you’ve found some dark secret? Much of the knowledge of CO2 response comes from palaeo analysis not models.

  73. spangled drongo says

    “Much of the knowledge of CO2 response comes from palaeo analysis not models.”

    Spot on!

    But “they” don’t even feed that knowledge into themselves, let alone the models.

    They are in denial of the best paleo which show historically higher temps with both higher and lower CO2.

    Which proves that it’s not about the science.

  74. Robert says

    Notice how it’s “science” versus people who disagree ’em? “Science” says, “science” knows etc.

    They really are too dense to understand that the problem is with inadequate knowledge, inadequate understanding, inadequate data, inadequate method, inadequate means and inadequate experience. Also, of course, no bloody commonsense.

    What did Macfarlane Burnet say of Aussie scientists? Commonsense without arrogance. Now we have given the likes of Lewandowsky to the world, gang-reviewed and as published as you please. Arrogance without commonsense.

  75. Neville says

    But Lukey doesn’t have the nerve to give us his solutions to the problems????? of increased co2 emissions.
    Yes, he thinks it’s a REAL problem caused by humans but runs like a dingo when you ask for his solutions.
    He’ll suggest we should look at new nukes, but that’s been covered well by Christy, including the maths and expected temp reduction. Once again SFA.
    Luke will argue all day long about the problems??? of too much co2, but he will never offer a verifiable maths solution that we can check.
    Of course he can’t because there isn’t a solution that will work. But I’ll try a different method. So luke, if we wake up tomorrow and find that cold fusion has been unlocked, please tell us how long would we have to wait before co2 dropped back to pre industrial levels?

    So starting tomorrow the entire world doesn’t emit another molecule of co2 from fossil fuels. Do we have to wait 100 years , 200 years, 300, 400, 500, or 1,000 or 3,000, 6,000 or longer. AND please tell us why you choose that period of time to return the planet to 280ppmv.

    If you admit you can’t answer, I’ll accept that as a genuine answer. I’d like Cohenite or anyone else to give us an answer as well.
    But remember the ice cores. Murry Salby’s ideas must be left out, just to suit the argument above.
    Good luck.

  76. Graeme M says

    Lots of discussion on WUWT about one of my favourite subjects, sea level rise. Quite a few interesting comments along the lines that were explored so entertainingly in the great Doltoid thread of last January.

    I actually reread that thread recently and am still shaking my head about the weirdness of those guys. I think SD did a great job of giving them heaps.

  77. Luke says

    Well a drivelling rightist moron like Neville – our resident shop-keeper paper-boy would only ever load up one side of the scales. If the ecological impact is high enough you’ll be doing whatever is necessary. Christy – pffft ! Peer reviewed papers please Neville not your denialist blog vomit thank you.

  78. Neville says

    So once again we have childish abuse , but no answer. This bloke hasn’t got a clue, but won’t admit it.
    So tell us wimpy what ecological impact are you talking about and most importantly give us a timeline to return to pre 1800 levels of co2.
    Even Timmy says hundreds or perhaps a thousand years, so what do you say and why?

  79. spangled drongo says

    Thanks for that Graeme and thanks for the heads-up on WUWT, I hadn’t seen it.

    The highest measured SLs in Moreton Bay are still back in the 1930s in one of the most geologically stable parts of the world.

    I’ve got a full-size juvenile Fantailed Cuckoo at the moment in my backyard being fed by a Brown Thornbill which is about ten times smaller and which has to work about ten times harder than normal to keep her “baby” fed.

    Somehow this reminds me of something I can’t quite put my finger on….☺

  82. beththeserf says

    The hockey schtick models, oh – so – inexorably – straight – up, didn’t seem ter
    demonstrate their perpetrators’ under -standin’ of logarithmic, seems ter me.
    Not such ‘quel horreur’ after all. )

  83. Robert says

    SD, where do I start? Anyone who’s worked around food and perishables – in fact, anyone with commonsense – would have to know what a stupendously bad and wasteful idea Veggie Day is. Like I’ve said many times, Environmentalism is the direct opposite of Conservation. It’s about wasting for reasons of dogma, politics and symbolism. These mugs can wreck like a Cossack horde while they whimper pieties and play the victim.

    Sack all Greens with the biggest sack you can find. They are wasters and wreckers.

  84. John Sayers says

    I recently took the high speed train from Stockholm to the Arlanda airport a journey of around 50 km. It took 20 mins and above me there was a LED readout showing the train’s speed (Topped at 210 km/hr ) and the temperature – from Central Stockholm to 50 km out the temperature dropped from 14C to 12C, a wonderful example of UHI.

  85. spangled drongo says

    “temperature dropped from 14C to 12C, a wonderful example of UHI.”

    John, land use change, particularly where the official thermometers record, would account for more than all temperature increase world wide.

    When you live in the bush, car thermometers show this all the time. If the BoM was fair dinkum they would have several automatic weather stations in large parkland settings surrounding those city ones that provide the official data and audit them all regularly.

    If “consensual science” was honest about that and adjusted properly for it, we would be cooling.

  87. Avatar photojennifer says

    John Sayers,

    Not so long ago you were in Paris… is this a long holiday… or are you visiting Pop Stars for work/recordings?

  88. Luke says

    As I said only an utter fraud like Neville would load up one side of the scales. I assume Neville would like infinity CO2 !! What a moron – get yourself educated on palaeo sensitivity to CO2 and report back doofus.

    Anyway I don’t think whiney Neville will be influencing much at all. Just sooking away like old men do.

    Can you be an environmentalist and NOT be pro-nuclear?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fm8SVLOacQ

    See the movie – http://bravenewclimate.com/2013/09/20/pandoras-promise/

    http://pandoraspromise.com/

  91. Luke says

    Robert I’ve only been pro-nuke for about a decade.

    Of course it’s his company but still an interesting perspective. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI

    I can’t see how you can be concerned about AGW and not pro-nuke. Dickhead Neville of course would like to get atmospheric CO2 to 3x. What a tool. But I don’t some inn-keeper will be changing the world so who cares.

  92. Robert says

    Luke followed nukes before they went all populist and mainstream. He remembers when nukes were an indi band playing around Erskineville pubs, before they sold out to the big labels.

    Hey, Nev, you’ve run a business or two? I’ll pay extra attention to all your opinions in future.

  93. spangled drongo says

    Good one [or two, or three] Luke.

    Promote them widely, wisely and well.

    We need all the help we can get.

  94. Neville says

    Luke I don’t run a pub and I like nukes as well. But coal will do for now. Geeezzzzz do you ever get anything right?

  97. spangled drongo says

    Thanks Jen. You can only shake your head and wonder at the stupidity.

    With the new Fed govt is there any relief in sight?

    Is any of the foolishness being reconsidered?

  98. Debbie says

    Yes great work Jen.
    Once again. . . . a HHUUUUUGGGEEEE thank you from this MDB irrigator.
    Thankfully we have had decent rains & inflows into the Burrunjuck catchment in the last week but even so we are still only on 33% with a further 5% not deliverable until February. Summer crops are being planted now.

  100. Debbie says

    Dunno Jen 🙂
    I think I would have about the same amount of luck by flipping a coin!
    Great little piece BTW.

  102. Graeme M says

    Has anyone kept up with the matter of the recent leak of the IPCC SPM? In particular, the question of the warming rate being half the figure in AR4. I understood the original discussion by David Rose noted that in the leaked summary it showed a recent rate of .12C per decade whereas in AR4 it was .2C per decade. This was then jumped on because in AR4 it was actually .13C per decade.

    Is that true? I had a dig around in AR4 and while I did find a mention of the .13C figure, that seemed to be over a longer period. But it clearly stated that the warming from 1991 to 2005 was earlier projected to be between .15 and .3 and that compared now to an observed (in 2005) rate of .2C per decade.

    So to me the original claim of Rose stands. The IPCC projected a rate of warming from 1991 to be around .2C and that’s what it turned out to be come 2005. But looking at it now the number is .12C. I’ll assume that’s the effect of the 1998 El Nino which has now been offset by the ‘hiatus’ to date.

    Thus, the current rate of warming according to observations is in fact half that projected by the IPCC.

    So why the gleeful claim that Rose got it wrong? I haven’t read enough blogs and comments to be up to date on this one, but it was mentioned on ABC yesterday… And again tonight in the 7.30 report.

  103. Beth Cooper says

    I do wish the IPCC would stop making long term predictions, even if they try to
    give themselves some leeway by calling them projections. Humans jest aren’t
    good at prediction. Yogi Berra and Nassim Taleb nailed it when they said say
    we aren’t good at prediction. The history of doomsday climate oracles, Malthus,
    Club of Rome, Erlich, Hansen, Flannery and Co demonstrate we aint good at it.

    In ‘The Australian’ Newspaper 21/09/13 an article by Judith Curry. on page1,
    includes a graph showing IPCC surface temperature projections from the first
    four Assessment Reports, compared to the observed global annual temperature
    record. They don’t even come close. I do wish the IPCC would – stop – making –
    long – term – predictions. ( Or any predictions.)

  104. jennifer Marohasy says

    Just filing this here…

    Dear Jen,

    Yesterday’s IPCC rooster

    Today’s feather duster IMO

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/27/reactions-to-ipcc-ar5-summary-for-policy-makers/

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/28/lindzen-on-ar5.html

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/27/keenan-writes-to-slingo.html

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/27/ar5-press-cuttings.html

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/27/intergovernmental-ar5-patch-up-josh-240.html

    http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2013/09/hearing-what-you-want-to-hear-from-the-climate-report.html

    Hope you invested in the popcorn market!

    Cheers

    [Name withheld]

  106. Neville says

    Thought I’d better include this here in case I get zipped at the other post.

    Luke I’ll stick with the sane scientists like Curry, Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Singer, Carter etc plus the thousands that signed the Oregon petition.

    But I also believe in common sense and simple maths and simple logic and reasoning. You don’t but that’s your problem not mine.

    You can quote all the others until you drop but you’ll never wake up until you admit you’re wrong about the AGW mitigation fraud.
    I couldn’t care less whether your side yaps forever about AGW, but don’t expect me to believe in the trillions dollar fraud and con of mitigation.

    Of course Labor thinks we should DO SOMETHING and yet on the other side of their brain they promote and encourage fossil fuel exports at ever increasing tonnages every year.

    This con and fraud couldn’t be easier to understand and yet you still don’t get it. Labor under Gillard even tried to get the Vic Coalition govt to export modified brown coal by the millions of tonnes, but you still don’t get it. As big as the Pilbara they said—– bi-polar anyone?

    The German govt woke up after wasting over a hundred billion on renewables for decades, but they’re now using brown coal again.
    It doesn’t seem to to have hurt Merkel too much because they have just received their best vote in about 50 years and the Greens slumped.

  107. Robert says

    ‘Extent northern hemisphere snow cover decreasing over whole 20th century’

    Okay, I’m being good and taking it to the open thread. I still think the most blatant beatup is that creaky old SLR that’s been going on for over two centuries, but re the above. Now I really don’t care if there is such a thing as a global temp and if it’s up, but let’s point out that summer snow extent in the northern hemisphere has indeed been trending down, but the rest is a different story:
    http://www.climatedata.info/Impacts/Impacts/snow_files/BIGnh-snowcover.gif.gif
    And this is what a global downward spiral in snow and ice cover actually looks like, even after a “careful” reworking by Rutgers:
    http://www.climatedata.info/Impacts/Impacts/snow_files/BIGglobal_snow_and_ice.gif.gif

    As to why this is all so, I’m sure the alarmists have a nice mechanistic, simplistic explanation right out of RC or SkS or the Tammy who isn’t Sandra Dee or Debbie Reynolds. They always do have a nice mechanistic , simplistic etc…

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