HIS greatest claim to fame is that he co-founded Greenpeace. Not something I would be proud of. Of course, I’m referring to Patrick Moore. He is touring Australia at the moment and every other day I get a request from someone asking I promote the tour here, at this web blog.
Steve Kates heard Moore speak last night and wrote at Catallaxyfiles.com today that it was very “rewarding”. Kates also wrote that you may have heard it all before.
People generally have favourite stories that they like to hear repeated. These tend to be stories that give comfort, provide an escape – even make us feel smug.
I suspect that’s why people on our side of the global warming divide like to hear Moore: he cleverly articulates their prejudices even if he doesn’t actually say anything particularly new, or provide any real solutions.
If this was the extent of the experience I may have been inclined to provide some free advertising here, but Moore actually optimises everything that I find increasingly frustrating about being a sceptic who is trying to achieve something positive.
In my opinion very little progress has been made towards a new theory of climate, an alternative to anthropogenic global warming, because most sceptics, and also the institutions that support scepticism of anthropogenic global warming, won’t invest in the same. They prefer to claim we are dealing with an essentially chaotic system, rather than consider what a new theory of climate might actually include. Indeed at the recent Heartland Institute climate change conference, Moore went as far as to suggest that it was impossible to forecast rainfall and always would be. The inference is that there is no scientific answer to the big questions in climate science. I disagree.
Of course John Abbot and I have spent much of the last three years showing that it is possible to make skilful monthly rainfall forecasts, and we are beginning to document how and why in the peer-reviewed literature. But there is no interest in this research by those who are promoting Moore’s tour of Australia – perhaps because it’s about science, while their interest is essentially in the politics.
What is missed in all of this, and was missed by Moore in his answer to one of Steve Kates’ question last night, is that there is a way to defeat “green policies” that are not scientifically-based, including policies derived from the theory of anthropogenic global warming. The answer is in promoting and supporting alternatives, because, as I wrote in the IPA Review last year, history shows that failed scientific paradigms are only ever replaced, they are never disproven until there is a replacement theory. [last six words added Sunday morning, following a comment from Pat Frank]
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
‘He has also not yet been scheduled for an interview by the Trotskyists at the ABC.’
Steve wasn’t holding back.
‘very little progress has been made towards a new theory of climate’
Groupthink has seen to that, so we need to sway public opinion into believing climate change is not chaotic and that the models are only wrong because of bad input.
In the short term, seasonal forecasting maybe the best way to prove our theory. Can we better BoM supercomputers?
Jen has been explaining that she can easily beat BoM’s supercomputers. Haven’t you been listening? Here is a “new link” provided on this same subject http://www.nd.com/apps/content/forecasting-monthly-rainfall-australia-0
Thanks for that Emily, I admit to being preoccupied and will take the time to follow up NeuroSolutions.
I’m sure Jennifer is correct that we must try and understand the past and present climate and promote it as best we can. But I also know that 90% of the people don’t understand the history of climate as well as the average interested sceptic does. If the higher profile Moore types can help to encourage a bit more interest and understanding then that is a good thing.
But Jennifer has a long hard slog to show that weather/climate can be forecast well into the future with reasonable accuracy. Every year into the future will either prove or disprove her work and forecasts about rainfall. And I’m sure that Jennifer and Abbot will have to work hard for any media exposure, while a fool like Suzuki comes here and gets his own show on ABC’s Q&A program.
No doubt those organising Moore’s toor have worked hard to get him on Andrew Bolt’s TV show and to all those venues. I haven’t seen Jen on Bolt. Not ever.
It seems the 97% certified consensus of climate scientists have efficiently modelled the weather.
Just force the computer models with carbon dioxide, and, what ever the prediction is, confidently choose the complete opposite of what it says.
Florida: Record Nine Years Have Passed Without A Hurricane Landfall, But That Streak Will End … Eventually
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/florida-hurricane-free-streak-luck-run-out-20140801
Exacta Weather in the UK is predicting a freezing winter and they are using NeuroSolutions. They predicted a freezing winter last year too, but it didn’t happen.
I have this feeling of ennui or Weltschmerz ; nothing changes, but will change in its own time.Of course, this meme will be replaced with another in due course and the greater masses will succumb to to the message again and again.Our great insecurity and desire to herd!
Jennifer,
There is a proverb that I believe applies in this case:
“Don’t let the perfect drive out the good.”
Moore’s message is good. Moore shows how something worthy has been hijacked and morphed into a misanthropic parasitic industry. Certainly getting that message out is good. Not nearly enough people realize how bad big green is. If big green retakes Australia, or continues its conquest there will not be a new paradigm for the foreseeable future.
It is reasonable to say that Moore is not perfect. He is not offering a new paradigm. But did he advertise that he was offering a new paradigm? He is giving a personal view of a spectacular, little noticed, fall from grace.
I do know this: if big green succeeds, your search for a new paradigm will be ended.
Perhaps what is more constructive is to support all who are moving towards not only the new paradigm, but those who promote a social system that will be open to the new ideas that will come to to replace the current failed ideas of climate science. And most importantly end the social madness that the climate obsessed are afflicted with.This is a multichannel process. Your work, while important, is not in isolation.
Jennifer,
By the way, the 2013 update on your neuro network project is encouraging and excellent.
http://www.nd.com/apps/content/forecasting-monthly-rainfall-australia-0 (thanks Emily)
That this has not earned wider attention is evidence that developing new ideas is not enough. Society must be open to the new ideas. In a society that was treating cliamte science rationally, you and Abbott would have gotten much more positive attention.
Moore is if nothing else preparing that ground.
Hey Hunter,
I just want people to start thinking for themselves. You included.
The old Greenpeace, under Patrick Moore, campaigned against uranium mining, whaling, seal hunting, etcetera…
The new Greenpeace, without Patrick Moore, campaigns against uranium mining, whaling… they don’t need to worry about seal hunting ’cause Moore was successful at having this closed down.
I wonder what his position is on the sustainable harvest of kangaroos? Maybe he would like to now support both the harvesting of kangaroos and also seals? Perhaps he might even be in favour of whaling. I am. But of course I’m opposed to the slaughter of dugongs, because I don’t believe its sustainable.
I wonder whether the sealing industry was sustainable?
“Moore’s fame with Greenpeace includes a photograph of him sitting on a Canadian baby seal in 1978 to prevent it from being clubbed. The photo showed up in over 3000 newspapers worldwide. The result: by 1984 baby seal fur was banned from the European market…”
What does Greenpeace do that is different now?
Fast forward… What is Patrick Moore’s exact expertise in climate science? What is he doing in Australia? Is he here to tell us that it is impossible to forecast rainfall… or has he changed his mind on this issue too? I hope so.
We should perhaps think about who we take on as role models… what they represent… what they stand for…
Jennifer I think you seem to want to pick an argument with the wrong people. Moore doesn’t believe everything he did when he was a youthful activist and I suggest most of us are the same.
Moore didn’t claim he had anything new to say, but if he can cause some others to have doubts then that is good thing.
BTW Emily I haven’t seen Jo Nova, John McClean, Warick Hughes, John Christy, Roy Spencer, Anthony Watts, David Evans, Willis Eschenbach, Judith Curry etc on Bolt’s show either. So what’s your point?
Jennifer,
You claim that you would not be proud of Patrick’s heritage in Greenpeace, what exactly do you have against stopping atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific, ending the Russian factory whaling fleet, ending baby seal hunts to name but three. I’m a little confused.
He left Greenpeace when they stopped basing their decision on science and logic and adopted an anti-capitalist stance, such as wanting to ban chlorine.
Patrick may not have anything new to offer you Jennifer, but you, and those who are aware that the AGW hypothesis has failed, are not the target of the tour.
While we have arranged at least one presentation in each of the cities he is visiting (he is a compelling speaker as you say), the organisers aim was for him to influence Australia’s business leaders, journalists and politicians. These private discussions allow him to have more detailed discussions on the issue.
Having spent the past 40 years fighting to protect the environment, he has a credibility that allows him to go places sceptic can’t.
He has only been in the country for 6 days but has already met with politicians, many journalists and a who’s who of Australian business leaders.
Maybe you could have made contact with Patrick prior to his arrival to discuss your scientific paradigm and how he could help promote them in his meeting with Australia’s business leaders, journalists and politicians?
Paul
Neville,
I “pick arguments” when I think something is wrong.
Thomas Huxley, one of my heroes, said that the one unpardonable sin for the true scientist was “blind faith”.
I want to understand why you, and others, are so keen to make Patrick Moore your hero?
I understand that Patrick Moore’s main claim to fame is that he was a co-founder of Greenpeace.
Is there something else that he has done that makes him worthy of all the attention that he is getting from Australia’s community of sceptics?
I mean Bob Carter, for example, is very knowledgable and extremely well-published on the topic of sediment cores and past climate. So, I would consider Bob Carter someone worthy of listening to on this subject. He is also a terrific speaker.
I understand that Patrick Moore is a popular speaker.
But what does Patrick Moore actually know about climate change? Do you agree with what he had to say at the Heartland Institute conference on rainfall forecasting?
Please don’t tell me that it doesn’t matter what he said. Because he is being brought to Australia as an expert, as a spokesperson for “our side” on this issue that is so dear to us.
Paul Evans
Greenpeace has always been an organisation that is anti-industry and that plays on emotion. It was never scientific. Whaling was one of its first issues. But could whaling be sustainable? Could it even be humane?
To suggest that Greenpeace was once scientific, even pro-industry, is to take a revisionist approach to history. And readers of this blog know how much I hate that!
I see you have begun your comment… “You claim that you would not be proud of Patrick’s heritage in Greenpeace, what exactly do you have against stopping atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific, ending the Russian factory whaling fleet, ending baby seal hunts to name by three. I’m a little confused.”
I guess you could add to this list.. “ending climate change denial”.
I mean what do know about nuclear testing in the Pacific, Russian whaling and the slaughter of baby seals? Should I know that these things are/were all wrong? Why not add in kangaroo harvesting?
I do know something about whaling… and I consider it both humane and sustainable… you can read more from me on this topic here… http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3634
Jennifer,
You seemed to have nicely side-stepped the point of my comment.
PS – Greenpeace was started with the aim of protecting humanity and the Earth from all out nuclear war.
Paul Evans,
I don’t believe you.
Greenpeace was founded in 1970.
According to Patrick Moore it was scientific, in the beginning!
So, what was Greenpeace’s original position on DDT?
I think J Marohasy is completely correct to reject any representative of THE ACTIVIST INDUSTRY for the simple reason that they preach catastrophe to collect donations to preach catastrophe to produce nothing but bafflegab in the name of cleansing souls of the sin of living.
They have nothing to offer that any rational person can use. They consume what they do not produce. They are parasites – end of story.
And damn Carl Sagan for his role model as super star noble liar. He was pure freakin evil.
He set the example the mooneys and manns et al crave to emulate.
It is not necessarily true that we currently know enough to formulate an alternative paradigm of how climate is regulated. It is plain that the current paradigm is inadequate, that much seems certain. Granted, a chaotic system is possibly beyond meaningful computer modeling on a day/year/century scale. But at present we cannot even confidently explain the larger timescale climate fluctuations happening over millennia or geologic epochs.
At a fork in the road how will one know where each road leads beyond the horizon without a map of the larger world?
Newtonian Mechanics was refuted by the observed precession of the perihelion of the orbit of Mercury. Special Relativity, the successor theory, predicted that behavior.
Rutherford’s alpha-particle scattering experiments refuted the “plum pudding” theory of the atom. The successor nuclear theory of the atom predicted that effect.
Heinrich Ruben’s black body radiation experiments refuted Maxwell’s Theory of Electrodynamics. Planck’s quantum mechanics predicted the black body effect.
Likewise, the photoelectric effect refuted the wave theory of light, and was explained only by quantum mechanics.
Wöhler’s synthesis of urea from ammonium cyanate disproved vitalism theory.
Mendelian genetics refuted the theory of somatic evolution. Evolutionary theory not only explains Mendelian genetics, but also explains the process of biology back to the origin of life.
Theories in science are predictive and falsifiable They get tested and risk disproof.
The very history of science is a litter of disproved theory, and its replacement by better theory. Disproof of theory does happen and has happened. In that event, a better and predictively more successful theory has always developed.
Theories are not merely superseded according to some change in consensus thinking.
Jennifer,
My view on Moore is that what he is speaking to is not the science of climate. He is speaking to the social miasma that is climate obsession.
His story brings home how Greenpeace journeyed from an environmental group to multi-billion dollar international parasite status. That has to do with human foibles, not climate science.
I apologize to you for pursuing something that clearly upsets you. I respect you too much, and the communications logistics are too slow, for me to feel comfortable pursuing this further.
Sincerely,
hunter
Nice Favi 😉
Dear Jennifer,
I’m not certain how I managed to get on the wrong side with you. I have never claimed to know something entirely knew, except perhaps to explain what is known in a way that people can comprehend.
I don’t believe I have categorically denied that we can’t predict rainfall in a general sense. I always make the point that a warmer world will be a wetter world, as the Sahara was green during the Holocene Thermal Maximum.
I do not believe we can predict the future climate with a computer as there is no crystal ball.
But surely the main points are that we do not have reason to believe that humans are the main cause of climate change and that a warmer world would be far superior to a cooler world.
Hi Pat Frank
You provide great examples… you show that theories are replaced, and I might suggest, then disproven. In all of your examples you show that it was the new theory that provided a way forward.
Someone was backing alternative scientific research.
Now, what is the alternative theory of climate… the replacement for AGW?
I’ve suggested in my writing on this issue that we need to start with new tools. I’ve suggested that general circulation model have failed us, but that there is a way forward with machine learning/artificial intelligence.
Also, I’ve just added some words to the end of the above post, to clarify what I mean, given your insightful response. You keep me thinking!
Given the paucity of counter-climate positions in the media I think that Moore will elevate that somewhat.How much exposure in the mainstream is another matter. A debate between Oreskes and Moore on the ABC would be quite amusing!Any debate would be welcome!!!
Jennifer let me say that I agree Bob Carter has done a lot more than Patrick Moore to further the sceptic’s case about CAGW.
But Moore may reach other groups that Carter cannot. Who knows? And who said Moore was my hero? Certainly not me.
Anthony Watts , Jennifer Marohasy, Bob Carter, Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, Roy Spencer, John Christy, Jo Nova, Matt Ridley, Chris Monckton, Lord Lawson, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, etc are people I admire for their efforts, knowledge and common sense on the subject of climate change.
But Patrick Moore may be able to open another chink in the armour that hasn’t been exposed.
Neville,
From my perspective our hostess is one of the real heroes of the skeptical push. She was put through real problems for sticking to her guns. She has been vilified. And now she stands vindicated- at least in the eyes of those who are willing to be convinced by evidence. Her work on finding new ways forward is important. She offers hope that skeptics can move from pointing out the reality of a failed climate consensus to being active proponents of the next best thing.
Hi Patrick Moore
Thanks for your comment.
There are not a lot of sceptics in Australia, very few with time and money, and I wish they thought a bit more strategically about what is needed to move us forward.
In my opinion, we are not going to make much progress convincing the masses until we have a few more journalists and politicians onside. We can potentially achieve this by progressing a couple of issues:
1. Making it clearer how the Bureau has tampered with the historical temperature record through homogenisation. This is something Jo Nova, Ken Stewart, and a few others started working on some years ago. I’ve more recently tried to help them crack this nut open – so to speak.
2. Back alternative research. For example, we need to start talking about the importance of being able to forecast droughts and floods. And yes, the history of science would suggest that a theory like AGW is unlikely to be disproven until it is replaced.
I’m keen to get some discussion going on this topic. You may be interested in my letter to the relevant parliamentary secretary, Simon Birmingham, that is here… http://jennifermarohasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Birmingham_2014_08_12.pdf
These are, in my opinion, really important current issues. But when, of late, I’ve attempted to discuss them with colleagues, they instead, want to tell me about your tour and suggest how I can help get more people to hear you speak. But, I ask them, what can Patrick Moore tell me that is new, and/or useful.
In my opinion, not only does your message on climate science lack rigour, it also cuts across my attempts to explain at least to Australia’s small community of sceptics, that it is possible to forecast monthly rainfall… particularly your YouTube video from the Heartland Conference that has been extensively circulated to this same community to promote your tour. The basic message is that we will never be able to forecast rainfall. That we are dealing with a chaotic system.
As I’ve explained to Case Smit, its a bit like bringing someone over to Australia to tell us that sediment cores can’t be used to understand past climate… a key area of research for Bob Carter.
Because you see, I’ve invested heavily in the use of the latest statistical modelling technique for rainfall forecasting.
In this YouTube you also suggest that Greenpeace was somehow scientific and sensible before it lost its way. Here, I think you are taking a revisionist approach to history.
I am a stickler for the truth, and I think we need to learn from history. But to learn from history we first need to be honest to history.
The environment movement as optimised by Greenpeace was never based in science. Greenpeace, WWF, and other organisations were about protection of the natural world through activism. And they still are… I would leave you, and them alone, on this issue except that you/them have actually corrupted what I hold most dear in the process… it is almost impossible to be a biologist without being an environmentalist nowadays because there has been total corruption of the scientific method with an illogical infusion of values.
As I see it, you were at the vanguard of this push. But you take no responsibility for the same. Instead you suggest that in the beginning there was some science! I don’t believe you. And, if there was, it would be possible to reclaim this. But you see, the environmental movement never had a rigorous theoretical or philosophical foundation. It was always about activism and emotion and propaganda.
We need an environmental movement based on logic and rational argument and that is honest to history… but I don’t think your message gets us there, or even moves us in that direction. Because I don’t think you are helping people to think for themselves.
Perhaps you could convince me otherwise if we moved to an issue that is less dear to me, and one that more clearly illustrates the divide between what I would call the thinking environmentalists/biologist and the activist. As an example, lets consider whaling…
To quote Fred Pearce on whaling…
“Greenpeace was far from being the first green group to oppose whaling. But it was the first green group to ignore the scientific arguments about whale reproduction rates, population dynamics, and how large a sustainable cull might be, in favour of an undiluted ethical argument: save the whale.” The media war was effectively reduced to the simple issue of whether or not “whales are good”.
You have a compelling narrative about saving seals in the beginning of the YouTube video everyone has been sending me lately. But its not about science, its about invoking emotion through images. I don’t know that much about why baby seals were clubbed to death. But I’m not going to automatically assume that it’s bad. Indeed seals eat fish, and the furs were used to produce coats – is that correct? So there were more fish for the locals and an export industry with the furs? Tell me more? Could it have been done more humanely? Was it sustainable – or not? The slaughter of dugongs in Northern Australian waters is neither sustainable nor humane. Perhaps you might want to make some comment on this while you are here? Here’s a snippet by way of background… http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/03/dugong-slaughter-finally-some-reporting-of-the-issue/
In Australia, most people are automatically opposed to forestry in Tasmania. But in fact the clear felling of the beautiful trees is just part of a process of providing people with timber and paper and is/was sustainable. Like dredging on the Great Barrier Reef. We are lead to believe that the reef is being smothered and killed with spoil, when in fact only a tiny, tiny region is dredged to maintain a port. Not far from this same port the corals of Heron Island are untouched.
Whaling is a hot topic in Australia each summer when the Japanese set-off for Antarctica.
I actually would like the Australian community of sceptics to become less emotional and more strategic. I would like them to not automatically oppose whaling because whales are good, but to think hard about every issue the environmental movement has taught them to react in an emotional way to. In short, I would like people to start to embrace enlightenment values.
This is perhaps the only way we can get away from what Glen Michel refers to in a comment above… about mindlessly embracing the next “meme” that someone decides to designate a victim of industry, or something else.
Indeed we need new principles, and we need people who question!
So, I will make no apologies for questioning your authority to speak on the topic of climate change.
But, if you prefer, we can discuss whaling?
I’ve outlined much of my position here… http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3634 .
I agree with Hunter, Neville, & Glen that Moore, due to his historical position, is able to engage with people who may be unwilling to listen to qualified people such as Jennifer. If his Oz tour opens the eyes of even one influential person to the intellectual desert that is the current state of AGW theory, then it is a positive for us all.
My view
What the general public sees and what the majority of the two battling sides of AGW sees are two totally different things
When MSM push stuff like this:
“Leonardo DiCaprio, the United Nations’ newly appointed Messenger of Peace, addressed world leaders at Tuesday morning’s UN Climate Summit, urging them to fully address climate change, “the greatest challenge of our existence on the planet.”
DiCaprio touched on his history as an actor to differentiate from fiction and fact.
“I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe that mankind has looked at climate change in that same way,” he said. “As if pretending that climate change wasn’t real would somehow make it go away, but I think we all know better than that now . . . None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact.”
So we have the Climate Scientists, IPCC & the UN using actors to lecture us on the Climate. PEOPLE believe this rubbish totally.
This love of FAMOUS people has spread to both sides. There is NO Science left, just a few graphs & pictures of walruses.
And this is what the majority of the PUBLIC see. The Pop stars, The super Rich, the semi qualified popularists etc
Politicians, political parties & the media are NOT publishing any science at all.
I was looking forward to seeing Patrick Moore on BOLT, but thanks Dr. Marohasy, you made me view the whole interview differently.
We need lots more SCIENCE for the general public to be broadcast.
I want to KNOW what the forecasts are of droughts, floods, cold & heat etc
I want to KNOW the truth about BOM & it’s fiddling of DATA
I DON’T WANT celebrities & NON Scientists on TV & Radio telling me about dangerous Global warming as a slogan.
Good to think about this debate in a different way.
I got off the tractor this morning to watch Patrick Moore on the Bolt report.
I agree with Hunter and Moderator Ray et al that Patrick Moore is helping to articulate “the social miasma that is climate obsession” and rightly or wrongly has greater public exposure than others that “thinking people” would argue are more qualified.
For some reason those who argue from the platform of what Robert often calls “our green betters” have so far been unable to successfully publicly vilify Moore. . . even though they must be right at this moment gnashing their teeth if they watched him on Bolt this morning?
He certainly had a solid go at the likes of Flannery and Suzuki and their influence on public opinion and public NRM policy.
Having said that, I agree with Jen that we all need to be very careful about wanting to re invent or tweak history or allowing a public revisionist approach to history in order to win a public argument…even though we might believe the end could justify the means in certain instances.
While I’m happy to accept that Patrick Moore truly believed that Green Peace was created for the betterment of humanity… history has instead taught us that at its core, Greenpeace it is a misanthropist organisation that relies on appealing to human emotions and not on solid scientific evidence or results.
That does seem to have become an epiphany for Patrick Moore. . .and good for him. . .but the argument that Greenpeace was founded on scientific evidence and devoted to achieving good results for humanity looks highly doubtful if we look at the behaviour and the results of the behaviour. . .ie the evidence!
So good for Patrick Moore for articulating his epiphany. . .but those of us out here who work in the real environment/weather/climate need to get off it and on with it!. . .we need more people like Abbot and Marohasy who have already recognised that it’s time to move on and research ways to deliver better and more useful services re the environment/weather/climate.
Hi Moderator Ray , I heartily agree with your sentiment.
Mr Moore did a sterling job , from this perspective, in some documentaries, which the AGW lot will never watch, because they are heretic.
Moving among the elite, in Australia, may certainly open more eyes.
On climate prediction, Jennifer’s research will create the machinery, which can be then fed with other discovered , or known, influences which may just create a new paradigm.
The very early South Americans, ( whoever, or whatever, they were), didn’t just figure out 36,000 year galactic cycles, so they could write them down.
Who knows what it may be possible to predict ? Is that why they wrote them in stone ?
Yes we must keep thinking and use our own personal super computer to see outside the boxes.
What is in most of them is pretty sketchy, although taught to students as indisputable fact.
Anyone who, like Mr Moore , can stand up and say, “I stuffed up, when I was a kid”, has my vote.
I have just watched Patrick Moore’s well delivered climate critique on the Bolt Report too [we get it an hour later] and I think he does a very much needed job in trying to win the ideo/politico argument which is what “Climate Change” has become in the real, every-day world.
This has now become a battle that can only be won by overwhelming numbers c/w convincing temperatures and people like Patrick are sorely needed to give sceptical govts the backbone and the support to be prepared to be even slightly sceptical.
Even though a majority of electors may be sceptical, the MSM c/w lefty academics and lefty politicians still well and truly have the upper hand in the debate.
The current complex “debate” over the finer details of the science, while the sceptics may consider themselves to be ahead on points, won’t cut through enough to stop the mad waste of the western world.
Well done, Patrick, we need more like you.
Ian Thompson
I don’t think Patrick Moore admits to ever having “stuffed up”. Rather he suggest that Greenpeace stuffed up.
He appears to take a revisionist approach to history. He suggests that in the beginning Greenpeace had a foundation in science and that in the beginning Greenpeace was not against industry.
As far as I can tell Greenpeace, from its inceptions, was against industries that harvested from nature, and from its inceptions was for unilateral bans on DDT, and was against uranium mining.
I would be interested to know what Moore’s current position is on sustainable whaling.
I would also like him to take some responsibility for being at the vanguard of the corruption of my discipline… biology/ecology.
I will repeat the quote from Fred Pearce… “Greenpeace was far from being the first green group to oppose whaling. But it was the first green group to ignore the scientific arguments about whale reproduction rates, population dynamics, and how large a sustainable cull might be, in favour of an undiluted ethical argument: save the whale. The media war was effectively reduced to the simple issue of whether or not “whales are good”.
Jennifer,
As I understand from those qualified to the opinion, whales are not merely good, they actually taste great!
I’m with Mod Ray.
Egg,
So, what are our shared values?
You, and the Moderator, are most keen for at least one additional person to see that AGW is a crock.
That is what is most important to you both?
But how then is the issue progressed?
What does that new convert do about it?
What is Patrick Moore’s solution?
How does this make us stronger, how does this give him/her purpose and direction?
Jen, we need all the help we can get.
Patrick Moore is a gift horse we should not look in the mouth.
What Berkley Earth’s Richard Muller did for the alarmists, Patrick can do for sceptics.
And I’m a whale-eater from wayback.
And I don’t mean to imply that Patrick ignores some of the facts like Muller does.
Simply that they are both influential people who have changed their opinions.
Wow, Jennifer, youv’e really got the boat rocking with this one.
Well done.
For me, a ‘convert’ is always interesting, but they do not have the integrity of someone who has followed a consistent line of OBJECTIVE THINKING.
Your work with John Abbout has huge financial implications for farming communities,
the nation, and humanity as a whole.
FOOD,,, THE MOST IMPORTANT COMMODITY ON EARTH.
Producing it is a lot easier with reliable forecasts.
The BOM has become increasinly irrelevant.
Would love to see your forecasting expand to our area.
Cheers, Slowlurnr.
‘That is what is most important to you both?’
Cannot speak for Mod, but from my perspective global cooling is imminent and there is nothing we can do about that.
‘But how then is the issue progressed?’
That’s because a large part of the population has been brainwashed and until we purge the Trots from the ABC there will be no progress.
‘What does that new convert do about it?’
There probably won’t be any, but Moore is not here just to keep up the morale of the troops. The pseudo left already have the barricades up and won’t be changing sides, while the larger population couldn’t care less.
‘What is Patrick Moore’s solution?’
He doesn’t have a solution, because of the complexity.
‘How does this make us stronger, how does this give him/her purpose and direction?’
A young 18 year old is camping at my place, he is a new recruit in Abbott’s Green Army. In the blink of an eye we’ll be watching soaps of same, as all recruits must be under 25 you can imagine the romantic opportunities, beautiful rural scenes etc.
The biggest challenge for us is to unscramble the brains of indoctrinated school children, while their minds are still fresh we should use satire to sway them.
Patrick Moore is a singular person and has every right to speak in the hope of persuading others, to do nothing in the face of adversity would be cowardly.
Egg,
You don’t unscramble a brain with more propaganda!
You start by dissecting arguments and explaining when a speaker – be it Al Gore or Patrick Moore – is appealing to reason, and when they are appealing to emotion.
Otherwise your 18 year old will be no more resilient to the next propagandist, than the last.
Of course Moore has every right to speak to our emotions. And he gets paid big bucks to do the same.
So there is no alternate theory that better explains the current observations. Glad you cleared that up.
‘You start by dissecting arguments…’
Every day at Watts there are new stories debunking AGW, but the MSM ignore it, so there is little that we can accomplish in the short term.
Appealing to reason is a must, but how to achieve that? Whatever we attempt won’t be propaganda because of our unencumbered scientific approach in search of the truth.
The upshot is that the situation will remain chaotic until we can show order in our forecasts, a verifiable replacement theory…. global cooling.
Has John Abbot done any three year forecasts?
Egg,
Debunking, is not providing an alternative. As I have written over and over in the links in the above blog post… if you want to succeed you need to take an interest in, and be prepared to back an alternative theory of climate. So, far I don’t think most people even understand what I mean by an alternative theory of climate?
To get there, you need to be part of a culture that cares about science and the truth.
If you really cared about the truth/the evidence you would take an interest in the history of Greenpeace and be interested in the discrepancy between what Patrick Moore claims, and what actually happened.
John Abbot and I have been documenting our success in the peer-reviewed literature at forecasts up to nine months in advance. We don’t think we have an alternative theory of climate, but we do think we are developing a tool that could be useful down-the-track.
Evcricket
It is clear from the data/the evidence that its not getting hotter, and its also clear that past temperature and rainfall patterns repeat themselves.
Its very obvious that AGW theory has failed at multiple levels and the tools that underpin this theory, general circulation models, have very little utility… beyond generating output to support the theory that then gets paraded as data.
That our statistical models based on historical data can provide a much more skilful monthly rainfall forecast, also indicates that climate is not on a new trajectory.
Thanks to relentless emotive, preferably fact-less green-bag campaigns, Australian science, the stuff of data and synthesis, has suffered death by a thousand-cuts.
Jennifer’s frustration with the ascendancy of selected vision over carefully considered data; and of mantra over discussion and resolution is palpable. It is also contestable.
It was bound-to-be that the fiction of the past few-decades would be overtaken by a reality that is widely different to carefully embedded expectations.
A protectionist ‘don’t-tell-the-children’ campaign will be next: watch how science funding evolves in the near-term.
There will be ‘hubs’ for instance, instead of ‘silos’ and centres of excellent CSIRO-disinformation. Hubs will be gifted $zillions of play-dough to invent another tune.
Industry will be co-investors and under the guidance of its million-dollar talking-heads; instead of researching for public-good, CSIRO will morph further into the publicly-funded parasite that it’s become.
Keep and eye-out for more crap out of the same pipe pointed into a different paddock and don’t expect too much real-science.
The fact is the rouge is not dead; long live the rogue.
The fundamental question that has been missed is: “Does nature want to be predicted?” In a personal envelope-sense, can I predict that because I get out-of-bed on-time I’m going to have a normal day?
Is it a reasonable proposition to hold nature or any other ‘normality’ accountable to a prediction? Is that a wise-way to run affairs?
Is there a null hypothesis that can be posed concerning nature (in a broad sense) and a prediction about nature or about the day ahead?
The philosophical and broader issue is not about methods of prediction. Some predictors and methods are better than others and Jennifer has alluded to that; but replacing one faith-mechanism with another does not stop shit from happening.
I’ve had a career in the climate-natural resources-agriculture -zone since I elected to attend an agricultural high school in 1961. Agriculture is a dynamic and innovative field; and its been a fascinating journey. Climatology, ecology, soils and agriculture are immensely important. Australia’s leadership in that science-zone has been degraded and lost, not invested-in. But that is not my point.
My point is that we don’t have cycles; we have events and turning points. Things and circumstances are only predictable for as long as they are; which could be next race-day; or for 15 or 50 years hence. It’s fine to say we predicted the last few decades and advertise it for the next few; but like global temperatures, along comes a confusing hiatus or a step-change.
I’ve got out of bed a few times in recent weeks and for reasons quite beyond science my whole paradigm shifted. Nature surely does that too.
Cheers,
Dr. Bill
‘We don’t think we have an alternative theory of climate, but we do think we are developing a tool that could be useful down-the-track.’
As you know there are over fifty theories on the hiatus, so I’ll add my own: Temperatures will continue on a gradual downward slope for another 20 years and then pick up again or temperatures will fall sharply within a couple of years.
As I mentioned earlier, Exacta Weather UK is making seasonal forecasts using NeuroSolutions, and they are also making three year projections. If they can do it, then its possible for us to do the same and discredit BoM in the public’s mind.
Bob Carter says we are not prepared for possible global cooling and I take him at his word.
evcricket,
The current theory does not explain anything but does justify the prejudices of its proponents.
That is enough to fail the climate consensus, if this was a rational dispute.
As you demonstrate, frankly.
Jennifer points out that historical analysis does a better job than the current consensus.
That would fail the AGW thesis if it were a rational dispute.
If I’m allowed to make a comment,
To turn the public opinion around the likes of Mr Moore are heaps more effective than a wagon load of scientists offering perfectly valid and correct information underpinned by empirical data and demonstrated with charts an all.,
That sort of presentation, unfortunately flows right over the publics head.
Can you just see their eyes glazed over and reaching for the remote?
Why do you think Flannery and Suzuki were – are so influential and successful, scaring the populace?
Simple message, no data just plenty of emotion.
Sorry Jennifer I take your point but you also have to admit that proper science alone will never win a public debate where emotional issues are involved.
Ie, whaling, seal hunting even bunny rabbits for heavens sake, take your pick.
Just tell them the storms are worse now then ever and they nod their heads in agreement, memories are unreliable and few people keep records. Those need no convincing anyway, they’re inside the tent.
And politicians follow the popular public opinion.
whose responsibility is it to teach a child?
who has failed?
does blaming somebody who has neither the right nor the resposibilty for one’s own child exonerate the parent?
since when does exercising responsibility on one’s own behalf require public debate?
what, exactly, does anonymous public (meaning No Individual Person) opinion have anything to do with a parent’s right and responsibility?
crying about brainwashed kids IS A CONFESSION OF FAILURE – not an excuse.
own it.
Jennifer,
While it is a bit refreshing to hear another voice (through rather limited outlets, I.E., PREACHING to the faithful ) I generally agree with your position.
Had our ABC given P Moore the platform/pedestal it reserves for A Gore, D Suzuki,
T Flannery, P Garret etc., the end may have justified the means?
One of the few things I managed to learn well during my Engineering studies,
was Ethics, and Professional Standards.
While it is very healthy to change one’s position due to new information coming in,
I question the ethics of those who jump from one camp to the other.
Ethical standards of science/leaning should be high from the start,…..
Then, hopefully, the knowledge will change, and grow.
It is one of the few advantages of getting older,…..
But it can only happen with OBJECTIVE THINKING.
Cheers, Slowlurnr.
Well yes Daryl.
Patrick Moore is being marketed like a convert.
Considering the topic of the following segment on the Bolt report. . .that is a very interesting observation.
Thanks also for Dr Bill’s insightful comments.
Much of the political debate is starting to make me think of something to do with flogging and dead horses 🙂
It’s quite obvious that nature & the Climate is not particularly interested in confirming or conforming with the AGW hypothesis.
The focus of Jen & Abbot’s work is far more likely to provide real benefits to all those industries that must deal with the real weather/climate/
environment year in and year out. You know. .
.industries like Agriculture & mining &
construction & transport & logistics etc etc.
The continual hand waving over a ‘teased out’
trend in global averages coupled with
sensationalist reporting about broken records is
NOT serving a useful purpose.
So good on Patrick Moore for articulating his epiphany about Greenpeace. If it helps to flush out some brainwashed brains and influence public opinion in the name of some common sense… that is on balance probably a good thing… but for all of us who need to get off it and on with it…Jen is correct that those who are abandoning the AGW and ‘Environmentalist’ ship are not offering an alternative. . .they’re really just beating up that deceased equine 🙂
Johnathan Wilkes nailed the problem perfectly.
Its impossible for the plateau in temperatures to remain forever, so the only thing to turn public opinion is to scientifically prove that global cooling is coming, as seen via NeuroSolutions and paleo studies.
Hey Debbie,
The dead horse reminds me of a long time ago, when ‘Gay’ was happy.
My wise old Dad used the term ‘green’ as meaning a bit inexperienced.
Seems he was on the ball!
Cheers, Slowlurnr.
At the end of the day egg,
“so I’ll add my own: Temperatures will continue on a gradual downward slope for another 20 years and then pick up again or temperatures will fall sharply within a couple of years.”
sounds like … instead of investing in the outcome of a race, like the Melbourne Cup, your bet will be simply that a horse will win it.
Up or down it doesn’t matter. Predicting a few days out is handy for someone going skiing or bushwalking; a month out, for someone planning a holiday, or getting ready to sow a crop, or to harvest one. Three-months out …. six-months out …. for other scales of enterprise.
Each prediction comes with increasing risk of being wrong, or risk of being awkwardly different to expectation.
Knowledge like this is handy to know, but risks associated with the knowledge being wrong are handier!!
If we enter a cooling phase, it probably won’t affect Australia much. Our land straddles the ‘human comfort zone’ latitudes, where people can survive pretty-well unassisted (by energy inputs). Nice to be a bit warmer in winter, but not really essential. Crop-growing zones may shift a bit north and so on, which is an adaptable scenario for us.
However, combined with altitude (and we don’t have much), those parts of the world south or north of about latitude 40 degrees, there will be many problems, for many people – food production, transport, living comfortably, … these will all come under pressure.
Australia’s limitation will always be water. Out landmass is terribly dry and potential evaporation extreme for the rainfall we receive. The next limitation is variability in rainfall and the persistency of low and lower rainfall regimes, for time-periods that exceed generational-time.
Other problems are small – gets hot and dry, everybody shifts to the coast, how simple is that?
Using a dry landscape to feed those people, and others, will require more thought and a return to the pragmatic science-approaches that have bought us this far.
Cheers,
Dr. Bill
Thanks Bill.
Johnathan,
Flannery and Suzuki are pushing a message that is accepted, and underpinned by the current dominant paradigm in AGW.
Until this paradigm is seriously challenged, the gatekeepers will not let people like Patrick Moore speak to the populous.
Egg,
Where I have written theory in recent comments, you might be better reading paradigm… and I mean paradigm as defined by Thomas Kuhn in his relatively short book ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’… that can be downloaded from various places on the internet.
I also talk about related issues in this article… http://ipa.org.au/publications/2216/competition-in-climate-science
Well said Dr Bill.
There is way too much ‘sweating the small stuff’ happening.
You have also highlighted the issue of risk management.
The current behaviour aided and abetted by the hijacking of the ‘precautionary principle’ is 100% risk averse & focused on negative doomsaying.
That does not help to navigate a way past that beaten up deceased equine.
I also absolutely agree that betting exclusively on another equine to be later beaten up is probably not a good idea either.
We’ve got coolish, stormy weather here today.
So far October has alternated between very hot and bloody freezing in our patch.
Good luck homogenising and trending October weather & then publicly claiming it means something important and useful!
“Until this paradigm is seriously challenged, the gatekeepers will not let people like Patrick Moore speak to the populous. ”
Jen, the gatekeepers will never give anyone even a balanced forum to speak against them.
This morning the ABC were interviewing a renewable energy businessman who was complaining about the Abbott govt’s 20% “adjustment” to the RET and how he can’t raise capital in Australia [because investors and banks can see how it doesn’t stack up but he didn’t admit that].
Here are two feeders at the public trough urinating in each other’s pockets but one has a charter to at least be balanced while the other is pushing up our power prices yet the ABC couldn’t even ask, a] if he had any conflict of interest, b] how much subsidy he was getting for an otherwise non-commercial proposition and how that was affecting power prices or c] allow any other party [such as a power expert or even a govt spokesperson] to give a second opinion.
This is the sort of cr*p we are stuck with so any Patrick Moores that happen to come our way we should embrace.
After my first throwaway comment with a link, I was hoping to contribute something more substantial and original to a hot topic.
But, I’m going to link again.
Blogger pointman has posted a similar theme, and possible suggestions on a way forward.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/pick-your-targets-carefully/
Quote: “If you accept there is a problem in that the ordinary person doesn’t read far into any blog article once they perceive it as “sciency”, then the logical follow on thought is that such an article will never make an appearance in the mainstream media, which we should be aiming to be breaking into.
If that isn’t where we want to be, then all the skeptic blogosphere is doing is intellectual incest.
What is the way forward?”
. . .
Some value in comments.
A link to another ‘golden rice’ moment.
Jennifer
I agree wholeheartedly with your comment earlier about Bob Carter – one of my heroes.
Spangled,
Patrick Moore led Greenpeace during the 1970s. During this period Greenpeace pulled the conversation movement away from science.
Fred Pearce clearly articulates what happened in the context of whaling… “Greenpeace was far from being the first green group to oppose whaling. But it was the first green group to ignore the scientific arguments about whale reproduction rates, population dynamics, and how large a sustainable cull might be, in favour of an undiluted ethical argument: save the whale.” The media war was effectively reduced to the simple issue of whether or not “whales are good”.
Indeed, in my opinion, Patrick Moore, has an awful lot to APOLOGISE for.
So, please desist from suggesting I should embrace him!
I actually think if our side was thinking, it would start embracing characters of more substance… but instead we have a Lord followed by the founder of Greenpeace promoted by the Gallileo Movement. I cautioned them very loudly about bringing Patrick Moore to Australia. But they ignored everything I had to say and like you, suggested it was in my interests to embrace Patrick Moore.
I’m sorry, but I have a long memory. And I’m yet to hear Patrick Moore apologise, or even acknowledge, half of the wrong that he has done.
Having read thus far, which has taken some time, here are some observations from me:-
This debate seems essentially about the way forward- whether “the end justifies the means”- and while I agree we need all the help we can get, I will always be on the side of integrity and honesty rather than celebrity and slogans from either side. While intellectually interesting, this is a distraction.
This debate has successfully distracted us from far more important questions such as- how to keep ahead of the Bureau’s frequent changes of emphasis (temperature trends- droughts- extremes- what next?); how to convince politicians of the risks in development of a food bowl in northern Australia, such as a 30 or even 60 year period of failed or weak monsoons as happened in the 18th and 19th centuries; do we really need more trees; how to predict when the Indian Ocean Dipole will interact with La Nina conditions to bring heavy rain/ flooding to Eastern Australia; what is the interaction between temperature and rainfall; how can we improve rainfall/ drought forecasting.
Can Patrick Moore help with any of this? If not, I’m not interested.
There, I’ve just distracted myself now.
Thanks, Jen. You obviously know more about Patrick than I do.
But still, we are all entitled to our Damascene moments and it is to his credit that he has gone as far as he has.
Maybe that constitutes an apology of sorts.
Imagine if James Hansen had a similar revelation.
The more baggage they carry the better for us.
Dr. Bill…: ” Using a dry landscape to feed those people, and others, will require more thought and a return to the pragmatic science-approaches that have bought us this far. ”
Have to mostly agree with the “good” Dr….mostly, because..well ..he’s allowed to get excitable like the rest of us!…But what his observations tell me, and have been whistling a little nondescript tune in my ear for some time now, is : miniscule…or minature…we have to climb back down off the ivory tower of broad and general observations, and look to the microcosm in our environment for how nature reacts to sudden or even long-term climatic changes.
Those native flora that have “furry foliage” as against those that have “smooth skin” stems…those food-fruits (perhaps) the same..one is susceptable to fungal / moisture increases , while the other has methods to turn from a hot sun that would make any engineer envious….there are, of course many examples in both plant and soil structures….these could harbour the scientific observations for swift or slow-burn changes to climate….the external skeletal insects have mechanisms for swiftly overcoming climatic change that may make an interesting input.. it may just take a much more intense study of the miniscule, rather than making a grab at the more popularist general.
Spangled,
I disagree. We all need heroes and they should be people of integrity, people like Ken Stewart. Ken not only has integrity, he works hard, he works cleverly. He found a simple method for quantifying the extent to which the Bureau homogenises the data at any one site. A method that I could use to explain the same to Graham Lloyd. Since Graham Lloyd’s series of articles the Bureau has published their 28-page summary, which confirms what Ken, Jo and others have been saying for some years now.
Ken Stewart’s work and character should be more widely known and celebrated – in the first instance amongst Australian sceptics.
Also, Ken Stewart is a retired school principal with a deep-seated scepticism for anything produced by governments, political parties, religious organisations, big business and Greenpeace. Ken believes in family, the power of learning, the importance of asking good questions and finding answers for yourself.
Ken Stewart,
Much thanks. You have articulated in the above comment what I have been thinking, but have seemed unable to come out directly and say.
I did suggest early on, that if Case Smit was going to spend $100,000 promoting someone, it should be an Australian who understands current issues. I actually suggested they sponsor a tour by Jo Nova promoting the work done by Ken Stewart.
I was told that neither you, nor Jo, had a big enough profile.
Of course, $100,000, used strategically could go along way to promoting you, and your work, to other sceptics, and key journalists. Indeed it could have gone a long way to creating a profile for you.
I always thought that Patrick Moore was an astronomer who presented the long-running BBC program “The Sky at Night”. Patrick Moore wore a monocle, was a bit eccentric, and died in England about 3 years ago at the age of about 90. Is there another one? Is he an imposter?
Hey Mr Koala
There is another Patrick Moore.
He ripped the brains out of the once proud and honourable discipline of conservation biology.
Thanks Jen, I’ll do some reading.
‘If that isn’t where we want to be, then all the skeptic blogosphere is doing is intellectual incest.
‘What is the way forward?”’
———
Pointman is correct and from an Australian perspective all we need do is eliminate the Trots from the ABC and allow balance on the subject. This will come as a complete shock to the pseudo left, but they would still have Fairfax and the Guardian to fall back on for sustenance.
Then we could have a real debate on the national broadcaster.
Egg…you’re “over-egging” it somewhat!
“Spangled,
I disagree. We all need heroes and they should be people of integrity, people like Ken Stewart.”
Jen, I have absolutely no argument with that. The Ken Stewarts, Bob Carters, Jen Marohasys, Jo Novas, Anthony Watts et al are the salt of the earth in their ceaseless efforts to inform the thundering herd but when extra opportunities allow us to get the sceptic message across we should grab [and embrace] them without complaint.
Are you gonna complain if Cook and Lew beat a path to your door brimming with remorse and wishing to repent and set the record straight. ☺
You mightn’t let them in but you’d be crazy not to help them broadcast their enlightenment to the world.
Right..that’s it..that’s enough for the day…I’m out of here before it’s catching!
Don’t worry, you’ll never catch it. You could plead for forgiveness on bended knee and it wouldn’t convert anybody
Jaycee … 73% of Australians have faith in the ABC, we want a revolution and we want it now. Purge Aunty’s Trots.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/12/18/trust-in-media-abc-still-leads-telegraph-takes-a-hit/
Faux sceptics like Case Smit are happy to rally against revisionists approaches to history when it concerns temperature records, while undertaking a revisionists approach to the history of Greenpeace as it suits Patrick Moore … http://www.theland.com.au/news/agriculture/general/news/man-in-the-middle-on-climate-gm/2714283.aspx?page=3
Shame!
Least I repeat myself, Patrick Moore ripped the brains out of the once honourable discipline of Conservation Biology. He lead Greenpeace, which through its activities, forced other more moderate organisations like WWF further and further away from scientific principles and into a more extreme position on a range of issues.
Hi Jen
Thanks for the rap, don’t think I deserve it, I’m just one bloke plugging away. And my methods have been around for a long time, I just apply them critically.
The truth will out…. one day.
Ken
Don’t be too naive here.
WWF also collectively has brains; perhaps they are very microbial.
The spat was more over money and influence than Green vs. greasy-grey, and the outcomes manipulated more powerfully and strategically by WWF bought us the Carbon Tax, the Climate Commission; a complete reorganisation (siloing) of science and the integration of WWF-aims and liberal politics, including education and the funding of science.
Its a long paddock to hoe through but many dots line up.
The only thing that has fallen over has been continued warming.
Inconvenient that!
Cheers,
Dr. Bill
Bill,
WWF was started in East Africa by big game hunters. In the beginning they were all about sustainable management of wildlife.
Greenpeace came a little later and pulled all the conversation groups, WWF in particular, in the other direction.
A good book on this early history, that marked the end of conservation biology as a scientific discipline, is ‘At the hand of man” by Raymond Bonner.
If someone could arrange for the real Patrick Moore to come to Australia and give a talk about asteroids and super nova, I would certainly go to that.
“So good on Patrick Moore for articulating his epiphany about Greenpeace. If it helps to flush out some brainwashed brains and influence public opinion in the name of some common sense… that is on balance probably a good thing… but for all of us who need to get off it and on with it…Jen is correct that those who are abandoning the AGW and ‘Environmentalist’ ship are not offering an alternative. . .they’re really just beating up that deceased equine”
Deb , exactly where I am coming from.
I do not see him as a solution, I see him as a helpful, (accidentally perhaps), ally.
I guess Jennifer, that I overstated his self criticism, but I really believe that that is where he sees himself.
As you say , he is not and has long ceased to be , a scientist.
As has been repeated on here again and again , sorry, science will not change the tide,
( X factor, etc, will interfere ), without some benign help, from sometimes unexpected people.
Accidental heroes are usually not perfect.
I DO believe that one day , the weather can be predicted a long way out.
I also believe, random events, (galactic, whatever), may cause mayhem.
Your work Jennifer , with prediction, is a tool which can gradually be added to, as I have said.
The BOM revision has to be ended and the Patrick Moores’ of this world , are the tool for that, armed with Ken Stewart’s data.
Jen I read your link and we are in agreement, but I’ll put this up for further discussion.
‘The history of science provides some insight into how to respond effectively. It suggests that the overthrow of an established paradigm only occurs when there is competition. Competition can manifest as something wholly political and strictly within the scientific discipline, or it can be about the evaluation of a theory based on its utility to those external to the discipline.’
On climate change the peer review system appears bankrupt, to a layman at least, so I can’t see any breakthrough in that arena. Ideally there should be equal funding on the possibility of global cooling, as mentioned earlier the precautionary principle is still in place and only needs to be tweaked. The competition would bring about a revolution in thinking and the people will rejoice, but not the pseudo left.
None of this can happen until we unscramble the egg, change public opinion and get politicians onside.
And hi Jen,
If I was to venture an opinion on the whaling science, I would ask , not reproductive information, not population, or even if it is sustainable to harvest them.
I would ask , if an animal, which appears pretty bright, has been living in our oceans , in its lifetime , since they were silent, (no motors ), can we pick its brain ?
I might also save our wildlife enthusiasts a lot of time, by checking if the youbeaut subsonic sonar makes them want to get out of the sea ?
BUT if I did that, I might want to know is it being used around Tasmania ? And by whom ?
Science, tricky stuff.
Sorry, missed the big one, do we need to eat them ?
Jennifer Greenpeace started differently also (and I don’t believe in ‘authorised’ books).
Perhaps a play on words, but they were conservation groups and in their early days I even donated a few dollars here and there. (Today, I think parasitic groups.)
Both have morphed. I would argue stridently and with data and information that WWF has achieved Greenpeace’s latter goals more successfully and much more potently than Greenpeace ever did or was likely to do. Greenpeace remained the strident ‘war’ machine that it still seems to be.
WWF built up a huge war-chest and became the middle-class equivalent. Their target audience is different, along with their focus and brand marketing.
Greenpeace is ‘action’; WWF is outcomes and fuzzy-things.
Tracking the who-is-who, and what-is-what; start with WWF-President Robert Purves ‘Purves Environment Trust’ annual reports and work back. (Its the second time he has been WWF-Australia’s President.)
Count how many times Flannery or other WWF warriors (John Williams, Lesley Hughes, David Karoly et al.) appear in photographs.
Look at the Copenhagen Climate Council – all sounds official; read who was involved and what they did.
Look at the Four Degrees Conference, who the speakers were and who funded it.
What about the ‘ice-bear’. Link the crescendo of all that activity to the carbon tax. Look then at who would ‘administer’ buying of Australia’s carbon credits. NGO’s of-course; and who was an NGO – WWF of course!
Purves’ trust funded Anna Rose, wife of GetUp’s Simon Sheik. Purves and the Climate Institute’s John Connor were ‘governors’ of Rose’s AYCC, which spawned a veritable virus-load of DNA into schools and vulnerable women’s groups across the country; helped of course by Flannery’s books. (who funded them??).
Keep going, join the dots. Be alarmed not disturbed at how easily our democratic processes were stolen away.
This activism lies at the heat of your dilemma; which I understand to be the ascendency of misinformation to the denigration of science and open careful thought.
The beast is still there.
We can prove all we like (and I’ve worked away at that) that trends do not exist; that data have been changed/falsified, but its the wrong (and very slow) battle to try to win now.
While everyone has been asleep or cleverly distracted (by marketing the drought for instance), the the battle that’s been lost has been the hearts-and-minds one.
There are now children leaving school as firm AGW believers – the drought was marketed to them from 2000 when some were in upper-primary school. Its 4-years since it ended. Fourteen years of very clever marketing has biased a generation.
We can battle-away and I do my best; but it’s no longer a ‘science’ battle.
Cheers,
Dr. Bill
I’m totally in agreement with Bill on this, the task is enormous, talk to your family and friends and do a straw poll on the effectiveness of the propaganda being pumped out of the ABC and SBS.
As we have already lost a couple of generations to the scourge, the education system will need a quick overhaul in anything dealing with atmospheric science. All that is required is an alternative view to sit alongside AGW and let the students decide.
There is much we don’t know, so by creating a debate amongst the student population and universities, it should help to break the nexus.
Hi Bill Johnson,
Napoleon said , something like — “Give me the child for his first six summers and the man will be mine”
Indoctrination , as you say.
The ‘enemy’ , is not dumb.
Bill is spot on. The problem Moore is addressing is the social side, not the scientific.
Both must be addressed if we are to make progress.
History is replete with ancient steam engines and navigational devices that were invented too early.
The social miasma that made the madness of climate obsession possible must be addressed as well as the development of meaningful science to replace it.
Dr. Bill….
” the drought was marketed to them from 2000 when some were in upper-primary school. Its 4-years since it ended.”
Here is the interpretive difference between macro overview and stats’ and micro examination and sightings. There may be stats’ that “prove” a state-wide or perceived Australia-wide drought “condition” is ended, but locally, district or geographical area-wise, there are some serious drought conditions…and THIS is the crux of identifying some climate change symptoms…the extremely erratic conditions on the ground in certain areas…the moisture in the ground is in some areas very low, very shallow, so that given the start of extreme heat conditions, it doesn’t take many weeks until “drought like” conditions appear in cropping, pasture and orchards…along with an influx of all the associated pests and “feeders” on a vulnerable plant….be it “domestic” or native.
This is the “soft underbelly” of the “compelling evidence” of the skeptics…for while there may be all sorts of ‘evidence’ that paints a broad picture of “cooling” or “drought breaking”, as any farmer could tell us, there are varying local conditions that control his output…some of those farmers who were once in marginal but manageable locations, now are operating in high-risk farming areas because of long, continuing unseasonal or erratic conditions.
I have pointed out many times on this site, the evidence of native species vegetation and complimentary fauna growth that demanded predictable climatic conditions to even evolve as the location specific species there, are over many thousands of years old.There can be not the slightest doubt that such species give solid evidence of both soil pH. and structure and rainfall predictability measurement of the area. To sweep aside such visual evidence of such examples is to walk deaf, dumb and blind into intellectual and environmental disaster. We cannot break a link in the holistic chain of the environment without breaking the “connected structure” of how and where we live, we cannot with glib wave of hand dismiss anthropogenic climatic change as a “non-event”…It is of little merit, but a human hubris failing, to point to a broad panorama of bushland and say ; “Look!..how healthy and wonderful prove the scenario ?” yet know full well, on the ground, it is a vista of an empty park with a vacant heart.
You can have a system of indoctrination in the schools – as we have. But if you teach your child to think, she can be resilient to this.
Of course teaching a child to think for themselves is much easier if you are a true libertarian, because true libertarians oppose all forms of arbitrary power.
So, I tried to never used my position as the mother to force a perspective.
“…because true libertarians oppose all forms of arbitrary power.”
Even, perchance ; Power over oneself and one’s desires?
”the drought was marketed to them from 2000 when some were in upper-primary school. Its 4-years since it ended.”
The modern klimatariat are not the first to deny the true nature of Australia – a land of droughts and flooding rains – for purposes of politics or to serve some other agenda or manipulation.
“Many thousands of Australians go abroad every year on business or pleasure.
The Commonwealth Immigration Office appeals to every one of them to embark with the resolve that he will on all possible occasions speak well of Australia.
Let none of them speak evil. Such words as ‘drought’ should be thrown overboard as the vessels put out to sea.” – H. S. Gullett, the Commonwealth Superintendent of Immigration.
(Sydney Morning Herald, 6 June 1921. )
“…a land of droughts and flooding rains “…as much as I compliment Ms McKellar on her worthy rhyme, and marvelous as it is as a poetic painting of HER interpretation of the Aust’ geography…if I have to one more time witness those over-quoted and under-verified lines, I will be forced to consult the services of a litigating lawyer to sue for misrepresentation of product advertising!
To push a blatant and gigantic lie is hard, but with enough effort, directed at the young in particular, it can be achieved for a while. Pick any decade since settlement, and there is a clear record of what Australia is actually like:
“The other day a professional Gentleman, in Sydney, was induced to dig for some moist soil, in order to attempt the preservation of a few choice and valuable plants. After much labour he got as low as 20 feet ; and, at that depth, the earth was found to be in as heated a state as that within only a few inches of the surface.” Sydney Gazette, 1822 (Drought in the 1820s extended to Tassie and was even worse later in the decade. Of course, the drought of the late 1830s was worse again.)
That Australia is a land of droughts and flooding rains is among the most valuable pieces of information we can have about where we live. A very short space of time separates the inferno of 1851 and the Gundagai Flood.
Droughts and flooding rains: it was a great and essential truth always passed on, through the written records of the First and Second Fleeters’ experiences, the journals, letters and notes of the explorers, the cattlemen, squatters and settlers. When the Murray stopped flowing for six months in 1902 it was recorded. When it stopped flowing in 1914 it was photographed.
As soon as the gigantic lie is repeated we need to hit back – hard and every single time. When there is a drought or hot spell the collectivists will try it on, because modern climate exceptionalism is at the very centre of their agenda. In fact, climate doesn’t just repeat itself. As Bill says, “we don’t have cycles; we have events and turning points”. I’m not arguing here for a climate which is just on a loop. I’m arguing for the most constant factors which concern us, the people who live here: namely, droughts and flooding rains.
“‘Cattle Kings’ ye call us, then we are Kings in grass castles that may be blown away upon a puff of wind.” Patrick Durack 1878
” “The other day a professional Gentleman, in Sydney, was induced to dig for some moist soil, in order to attempt the preservation of a few choice and valuable plants. After much labour he got as low as 20 feet “……??
The other day??…not “yesterday, not monday nor tuesday..but : “The other day”…and a “professional gentleman” to boot…well, I must say, if indeed he was a “Gentleman”, then he was no labourer….and I have to say, in my experience it takes some mighty powerful digging to get twenty feet down in one day!!!…and all that mullock??…and the day , other or otherwise, I see a “gentleman” of any description putting his back into the busness end of a pick and shovel to dig two feet, let alone twenty!!??…I’ll take up ballet dancing!
Again, Robert, like your adoption of that vague and romantic description of Ms McKellar’s Aust’ you are too keen by half to see the song and not the dirty soil !
Droughts and flooding rains. Stuff that happened. How they hate it, how desperately they need to bury it.
They have a big lie to sell, as big as a lie can get. It’s like telling you you don’t have a nose on your face. They have to work against all evidence and experience. So you can expect lots of tricks and twists, verbal and otherwise. When all that fails, they’ll try shovelling mindless verbiage to blur the issue. Anything to squeeze just a little piece of their lie through.
They themselves may well know it’s a lie. After all, there will always be drought somewhere in Oz – even in the 1970s there was drought – so they know they’re on to a good thing if they can just find enough young or impressionable punters to believe that the latest drought is somehow a freak caused by you-know-what. In short, they know drought is a good bet and always has been. They just need to obscure the bit about “always has been”.
I know we’re drifting off topic, but I’ve promised myself that when I see the lie I’ll slap it down quick, and because the lie is appearing here for some reason, I’m slapping.
I’ll leave the last word to someone else:
“But, it appears to me, it is not in the height and character of its hilly regions, that we are to look for the causes why so few living streams issue from them. The true cause, I apprehend, lies in its climate, in its seldom experiencing other than partial rains, and in its being subject to severe and long continued droughts.” – Thomas Mitchell, JOURNAL OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE RIVERS DARLING AND MURRAY, IN THE YEAR 1836.
Of course, what Sturt and Mitchell encountered was the exact opposite of what stopped Oxley in 1818,
Droughts and flooding rains, you see.
Droughts in Australia. Review of Records from Earliest Years of Settlement to 1955; by JC Foley. Issued by the Director of Meteorology September 1957 (BoM Bulletin 43.)
I have a copy right in front of me; I know about droughts and I know plenty about soil water, and the wider effect of drought on ecology. Droughts are cumulative – they result from progressively dry conditions and the drought up to 1948 was the the absolute worst in our history. Droughts (pleural) up to 1886 were devastating also; but for different reasons.
The Federation drought that followed the tumultuous-climate years from 1896 to about 1900, heralded a low rainfall epoch that lasted to 1947/8.
By 1947, by all accounts the place was devastated. Ravaged, burnt-out wind-blown and eroded. Australian vegetation did recover.
We will never return to an agriculture of the 1890’s; or the late 1940’s, or the late 1960’s.
Its not possible to reverse the benefits for instance of stump-jump ploughs; star pickets; poly-pipe; roundup; ‘o’-rings and high-tensile nuts, bolts and barb-wire; let-alone new varieties. There are many more, but each invention resulted in huge steps-forward.
Its true that drought goes on; innovation does as-well and much of it was borne out of adversity. There is no real answer to drought in a widespread sense; but it is not the work of ‘climate-change’; it is what our climate has always brought us, and before ‘us’, what and who ever was in this land.
Drought was used to market global warming.
Facts that got in the way (such as Bulletin 43) were ignored; some were changed (like our historic climate records); many were massaged (aka homogenised).
There was a well-funded machine behind that marketing. There were focus groups; brand-identification; slogan-writing; quick on-message one-liners.
There was also a lot of valuable data that was simply thrown away, along with the scientists who knew about them.
Take “climate change”. Everybody knows what it is; but what is it?
It’s a brand. In any historical context its is meaningless. How can anybody possibly link drought to CO2?
How is it that anyone (let alone a whole generation), ‘believes’ in it? (in being the operative word.). It would be silly to believe the climate stays the same; but to believe IN climate change is a bit bizarre.
A counter strategy has to include elements of scientific re-evaluation of the underlying premise. There also has to be some winding back of the religious side.
Nature is helping in that regard, however, ‘science’ is in the process of regrouping and there is no-way to hold anyone to account.
Jennifer is decrying the loss of integrity. She may have underestimated the scale of the loss.
Moving forward requires a strategy. Robert Purves spent some $10 million on his personal campaign; WWF another huge amount. CYCC raised money, so did GetUp! Effectiveness was constantly monitored.
Lots of volunteers went out ‘selling’. Some individuals were personally very frightened and fearful about the scenarios that were marketed. It was the biggest and most subtle political campaign in Australia’s history.
Cheers,
Dr. Bill
Fixed it Bill – Ray
“Jennifer is decrying the loss of integrity. She may have underestimated the scale of the loss.”
Well said, Dr Bill.
Like when our kids are not only not being taught this essential history but are being specifically indoctrinated to ignore it.
Marketing a scenario, indeed.
Science alone cannot overcome this discrepancy.
Better marketing is needed for starters.
See:
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/10/25/the-australian-youth-climate-coalition/#more-109
Well said, Dr Bill.
Maketing is an essential part of the fix.
A marketing campaign must keep in mind ‘the battery hen syndrome’.
With the highly urbanized nature of the Australian population, living in their air conditioned McMansion cages, relying on a junk food diet from McMedia, driving their air conditioned McSUV to their air conditioned, politically correct workplace,,,
“Houston,…..We have a problem”.
Most marketing is a bit of a con job. I more than, don’t like it.
But objective thinkers learn from others, so maybe we should look at
McDonalds re-branding the image with healthy alternatives.
Cheers, Daryl McDONALD
I think everything is a lot more corrupt and difficult than any of us think. Here’s a column by Roger Pielke Jnr commenting on some of the incredible nonsense levelled at him by Obama’s Science???? advisor.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116887/does-climate-change-cause-extreme-weather-i-said-no-and-was-attacked
Pielke jnr is a believer in AGW but because he won’t bow to obvious lies and corruption he too is attacked by the Obama administration, so what hope is there?
As I’ve said before the only chance is sustained coverage in the media. Jennifer and others were able to get an inquiry into the BOM because their problems were exposed in the OZ. This was achieved in a matter of weeks after the revelations.
But the biggest scandal is the con and fraud of AGW mitigation. Simple maths proves this is impossible and yet we’re now told the world is wasting one billion $ a day on this con.
Robert..: ” After much labour he got as low as 20 feet ; and, at that depth, the earth was found to be in as heated a state as that within only a few inches of the surface.”….
I have a cellar next to the house c.1900. 12 feet deep..even in the most extreme heat , down at the bottom it is a steady 13deg. it is why they dug cellars…20ft. deep…?? ..I’ll leave that one with you.
Yes, Dr. Bill…Let me state categorically that politics is playing a HUGE part in the climate debate…HUGE!!..I deny it not…THAT will play out on it’s own time at its own pace….however, politics does not potatoes grow!..
Back to Jennifer’s desire of thinking on subjects…Unlike many of you here, I do not have access, nor do I wish to have access to many and varied links and publications persuading me of this or that line of thought on this subject…I DO read a fair amount, incl’ YOURS here…but I do not gather “the skirts of dissent” about me like a security blanket. BUT..but what I do have is the capacity to observe the natural world about me…I live in such a spot that is both an example of time-capsuled nature and a junkyard of human endeavour in farming.
This farm has history…it was owned by the one family since their settlement here in 1880…my relatives by marriage…they stopped cropping when the horse drawn era ended as it was considered too marginal to be worth while “tooling up” with new equipment…so the “song” remained the same…old folk died, young ones married grandchildren came , people lived and died through the fifties, sixties etc…..and now I have it to observe…I also inherited one other little thing when I took over the property…”The Stateman’s Pocket Year Book..of South Australia…No. 44 1960. (Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics).
There is also out the side of the “new house” the original 1880’s wattle and daub hut the first owners moved into upon marriage…the great, granchild, in a moment of delinquency, lit a small fire against the native pine “wattle” wall and burnt a hole in it…I was able therefor to cut a slice of that original pine and do a growth-ring check on the age and whatever. I will not go into the results on wet years and dry years etc. sufficient to inform that by using the “science” of the world around me , I have come to my own conclusions about why I believe in human induced change..It is not a “religion to me, nor is it based on Tim Flannery’s or any one else’s writings, nor is it politically inspired…Many of us in such a favourable situation are able to use our own observations , our own measurements, our own nous to make our own judgement and come to our own conclusions…
It would be a grave mistake on anyone’s part to presume general ignorance amongst those generally concerned. If it is with a scientific base that Jennifer yearns, then, while some may be intuitive (is that bad?) an awful lot is collected snippets of close observation and wide ranging experience….You don’t necessarily have to give ground, but for the love of god, give us a break!
Hi All,
Yesterday on ABC western plains the BOM guy from Cobar claimed that Sunday was the record for hottest October day in Cobar, 39 point something or other. Does anyone here know if that is a true record or one of those fiddled records? Just seems a bit low to me.
Sorry for being off topic.
For someone who claims to be a post hole digger, Jaycee has dug an amazingly big hole!
” Here is the interpretive difference between macro overview and stats’ and micro examination and sightings.
“and THIS is the crux of identifying some climate change symptoms…the extremely erratic conditions on the ground in certain areas…”
” as any farmer could tell us, there are varying local conditions that control his output…some of those farmers who were once in marginal but manageable locations, now are operating in high-risk farming areas because of long, continuing unseasonal or erratic conditions.”
Jaycee still doesn’t seem to understand that statements like these actually verify the observations in that famous poem and the historical records.
DM actually wrote about the massive diversity of this land of ‘sweeping plains’, & ‘rugged mountain ranges’ etc.
The AGW/Climate Change hypothesis relies almost solely on ‘macro overview and stats’ and categorically ignores local and regional conditions. . . and as Jen, Ken, Bill and others have recently confirmed… entities like BoM alter the local and regional data to ‘match’ and ‘conform’ to the larger constructed National scale.
The global warming signal/trend that has been ‘teased out’ and marketed is derived from averaging and homogenising and the conclusions are ALWAYS macro, the SMALLEST scale being on a NATIONAL scale.
The climate and the natural environment in Australia has always been erratic on a local and regional scale and farming in marginal areas has always been subject to high risk.
It is not the climate that has made farming in marginal areas riskier,. . . it is a plethora of other factors related to economics, global markets and government policy.
Here in the last 2 weeks the temperature has ranged from as low as 5 to as high as 41. Yet the native flora and fauna just get on with their daily business.
The idea that the natural Australian environment is going to keel over sometime in the future because there is a perceived rise in the NATIONAL mean temp of a poompteenth of a degree is just ludicrous. In the last 2 weeks in the MIA the range has been over 30. The change in temps were rapid. One day we were wearing summer clothes and the next we were in overcoats and jumpers and had the fire on full bore. And of course. . .this is far from unprecedented in October. . .it’s just the Australian Spring doing its normal erratic thing.
Jaycee is seeing bogey men under the bed and perpetuating a doomsayer philosophy.
Some of Jaycee’s comments are similar to another iconic Australian poem “Said Hanrahan”.
Rather than continually commenting ‘that we’ll all be rooned’, perhaps Jaycee might like to offer SOLUTIONS to the challenges we face in the ‘land of drought and flooding rains’?
And maybe the claim of co founder may not be valid either.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/06/27/who-founded-greenpeace-not-patrick-moore/
The usual “Debbie” response…Debbie, for someone who claims university qualifications from esteemed institutions, would it not be more suitable to engage statistics somewhat more accurate than the random lines of a jingoistic poem?
Jeezus wept!…cried Hanrahan …
Yes, Bill, the marketing of drought, as you put it, has been a blatant scandal. It relies on short memories or desperation to believe.
When people in SA wanted to believe, after some good years in the early 1870s, that drought had gone away or that rain would follow their ploughs, it was Goyder’s observation of vegetation and land that was proven right by the 1880s. But Goyder was thorough and an observer like few others.
Mitchell formed the opinion in 1845 that the western slopes of NSW were on the verge of becoming “open downs” because the vegetation could not long survive the drought conditions he witnessed there at the time. He knew drought dominated the system but had trouble believing a vegetation could be so adapted to drought. We should not judge him harshly for that. Even in the 1990s a group of pretend scientists in the US claimed they could tell past temperatures from the rings of bristle cone pines, despite serious 1950s studies of the species as an ultimate drought plant – and despite common sense. They actually got away with it!
Getting back more on topic. it’s been worthwhile to recall that Greenpeace was NOT a noble and science-based organisation before it was corrupted by the old Left looking for a home. Greenpeace was sinister from the very start.
More about weird weather etc from the extremists at SBS, another taxpayer funded groupthink media organisation.
Total BS of course but they couldn’t care less.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_is_weird_is_sbs_peddling_such_a_trashy_scare/#commentsmore
“The answer is in promoting and supporting alternatives, because, as I wrote in the IPA Review last year, history shows that failed scientific paradigms are only ever replaced, they are never disproven until there is a replacement theory”
Children won’t voluntarily let go of their binkie until they have a replacement.
Jaycee,
Wouldn’t it be more suitable to learn from history and therefore learn from our mistakes and our successes rather than taking what Jen describes as a ‘revisionist approach’ to history?
Those random lines from that jingoistic poem are iconic because the poet cleverly encapsulated the “sunburnt country”. it’s rather ironic that you’re complaining about the fact that it gets oft repeated. Perhaps you need to reread Dr Bill’s comment at 4:47 am… (?! 4:47am??!!)….and see if you can comprehend what he says about the marketing practices of the CAGW and environmentalist crowd?
I also note you have done an absolutely champion job of missing the point.
If you think it’s more suitable to engage statistics. . .then where are your engaged statistics that back up your claim that climate change is in your personally observed opinion the CHIEF CULPRIT that is further negatively influencing farming in areas that were always marginal areas. . . and/or that the local native flora/fauna in those same areas are suffering due to climate change?
Debbie, JC is a bit like our weather. When you think he has reached the extreme he shows there is always more where that came from.
And also like our weather, usually for the worse.
Having such an “ecclestiastical trilogy” on my case..ie ; The Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I am tempted to retreat from the front-line fray and “regroup”….Luke!…where are you?
There’s probably another way to skin this cat and that is to tackle the easy bits first. Jennifer’s idea is okay but it will take decades to win the argument by trying to replace CAGW with another idea. But you can already compare our climate to the rest of the Holocene and Eemian etc and that shows there is nothing extreme about the climate today at all. In fact far from it.
The argument about CAGW mitigation is won easily and is backed up by the 2 premier science bodies RS and NAS. Even silly Flannery had to admit it’s a problem and could take a thousand years to see a result. And don’t forget that RS, NAS etc base their projections ( thousands of years) on the basis of the world stopping all human co2 emissions today.
Yes Robert,
History has taught us that Greenpeace, at it’s core, was most likely always misanthropist and anti Progress (with that capital P)
Patrick Moore’s epiphany and his very well marketed ‘convert’ status is that he believes it has become or has developed into a misanthropist organisation but wasn’t so in the beginning.
SD,
I know engaging with Jaycee is a bit like arguing with the weather but…. as Robert and Bill have further explained… the Aussie weather is being revised and repackaged for highly questionable purposes.
The attitude from the Jaycees of this world displays part of this problem and is in no way part of any sensible or positive solution.
Any time they’re questioned about that “IT” that they claim “WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT” they immediately revert to ad-hom or claiming victim status or mouthing sciency, mathsy sounding platitudes or appealing to authority. All of it is still devoid of anything sensible, practical, useful or positive.
Erratic, changeable and often extreme…indeed it is a bit like our Aussie weather 🙂
Davefromweewaa,
I’ve opened a new/open thread for you. But my quick response would be to get back to the ABC and ask them whether or not they were relying on homogenised data!
Kuhnkat,
You’ve effectively translated my essay into something suitable for Twitter. Thank you! And for being insightful!
Dave, for some reason the spring of 1965 produced some scorching individual days, especially around the midcoast here (close to 40 on Oct 31 before they froze with 18 max on the Ist Nov!).
At Cobar (PO) a similar thing occurred, with 41.1 on the 31st of October (equalling a reading for the 17th Oct in 1887, when they had quite a long heatwave with several temps around 40 in mid October). In 1965 they also had an eight day Feb heatwave and a Christmas heatwave which reached 45.6, but I guess 37.2 on September 25 1965 is more noteworthy.
If you check the Elders website, Cobar’s highest prior to last Sunday was 39.4 for the 31st. For Cobar PO that was the temp for the 30th. The 31st of October 1965 was 41.1 (as it was for Nyngan AP). For Cobar MO it was 39.4 on the 31st. Who knows what’s going on there? I can certainly tell you which reading would be more popular with the ABC and the klimatariat.
Anyway, these last three springs have been hot and nasty and have made a big hole in my plans. Springs have certainly been better in the past. And they’ve been worse!
While I said in my last post, that most marketing is a bit of a con job,
I realise the strength of music in selling a message.
Remember the Minister of Rock, trumpeting the nonsense from the
Green Gospel. He ended up Minister for the Environment?
What we need is a new Supergroup.
I have already registered the name,…..’GET REAL’.
I have a son, 6ft 2, dark, hansome, fancies himself on the Guitar
Anyone know a good Bassist, Drummer, Ivory Tinkler?
Jen, hows your vocal skills?
Maybe there’s a Rock Chic outfit hiding in the cupboard?
Some words for the first hit single come to mind,…
“Well, I,m drivin’ in my car
and a man comes on the radio
He’s telling me more and more
‘Bout some useless information
supposed to buy ma imagination.
I can’t get no,……….”
Speaking of converts, I figure P Garret will be under-employed at the momnet.
Sign him up as our musical director.
Sorry guys. Been doing the long hours involved in food production.
It has some perverse effects.
Cheers, Slowlurnr.
Good stuff, D McD.
My eldest writes and records for the industry. Hafta get him onto some sceptic disco or rap.
Robert, these tinder-springs do upset one’s plans. I’m in the process of filling all the tanks to help it rain this arv. I’d better wash the car too.
SD, my mother’s family were from out Forbes, Goolagong etc and I was raised to hate the spring, regard it as “treacherous” etc. Considering what it was like out west in the ’30s I can see why they felt that way. I try to like the Oz spring in the hope it will like me back. Can’t do it. Whenever anyone talks of a beautiful spring day I attack them with a bamboo pole. Figuratively, of course. It’s a modelled emulation of a an attack with a bamboo pole.
We live THROUGH August/September…but we are born FOR April/May.
Successful mass marketing is usually based on the AIDA approach and it’s all about ‘selling’ to targeted audiences and demographics via well surveyed emotional attachments,emotional opinions, status symbols and the emotional desires of those targeted audiences. The selling in this instance has targeted the ‘urban elite’.
Attention: Use a catchy emotional phrase or catchy jingle or some other clever catchy creative audio/visual/language device to gain ATTENTION via appealing to emotions.
Interest: Tell a story that creates INTEREST via appeals to emotional attachments and targeted human vanities.
Desire : Build on and develop the emotional DESIRE that has been created in the interesting story
Address: To fulfil this desire. . .send money to this ADDRESS
It doesn’t have anything much to do with logic or evidence.
The more urbanised we become, the more successful this approach.
It is also probably why it is the people who travel to work in their climate controlled transport, from their climate controlled homes to their climate controlled offices who have been so easily sold on the concept of CAGW and/or Alarming Climate Change.
Or as Daryl commented earlier:
“The highly urbanized nature of the Australian population, living in their air conditioned McMansion cages, relying on a junk food diet from McMedia, driving their air conditioned McSUV to their air conditioned, politically correct workplace,,,”
But despite that, there are plenty of people who reside in our towns and cities who actually run their own businesses, who are often well educated (and even if not by conventional educational standards they are natural, talented problem solvers) and, by necessity, do recognise the difference between airy fairy marketing and common sense.
Nick Cater’s book examines the rise of the ‘urban elite’ and it’s inherent weaknesses.
The marketing of Patrick Moore probably won’t hurt those who are trying to argue for some common sense too much, although I share an inherent mistrust of this type of marketing for the reasons that Jen has highlighted. . . but it is probably messing with the heads of those ‘urban elites’.
I would have a bit more respect for Patrick Moore if after articulating his epiphany, he started actually promoting people like Jen and then stepped out of their way. . .rather than just beating up on Greenpeace and the likes of Flannery and Suzuki.
Unfortunately by doing this, it is still Greenpeace and the likes of Flannery and Suzuki who get the publicity and therefore the ATTENTION.
Hey Deb,
Seems you have a pretty good handle on it.
How about penning a song for our SUPERGROUP.
Am thinking of something catchy, sing-a-long, like Van Morrison’s GLORIA.
G….L….O……R…….IIIII…A.
Not sure of Jen’s vocal style?
Check with her!
Cheers,,,, Slowlurnr.
Jo Nova has a post about the almost incestuous nature of the alarmist crowd and where the funding comes from and where it goes.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/10/billionaires-club-fund-green-blob-climate-works/#more-39160 Yes the billionaires club funding seems to include most govts, political parties, big business, banks, all sorts of green groups, ex pollies etc
I wonder how long before we find out who will be appointed to carry out the audit of the BOM? And will they be genuine and independent people or not? Only time will tell I suppose. Let’s hope that Jennifer and Ken etc are keeping an eye on the process.
Neville,
You expect Ken to keep an eye on the process? But there has been no fundraising to support this effort.
Indeed, Ken lacks a profile, and I can’t sing. Yet you have expectations of us?